Bone Density Illustration (IMAGE)

American Museum of Natural History

Bone Density Illustration

Caption

This illustration shows that modern people (right) have unusually low density in bones throughout the skeleton, including the hand bone joints (metacarpal heads) shown here. This new study found that bone joint density remained high throughout human evolution spanning millions of years, until it decreased significantly in recent modern humans, probably as a result of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. From left to right: modern chimpanzee, Australopithecus, Neanderthal, and modern human.

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© AMNH/J. Steffey

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