Gripped by ancient hands: Cora Leder awarded prestigious NWO Humanities PhD Grant
How did early humans use their hands, and what can that tell us about our shared past? Cora Leder, newly awarded recipient of the NWO PhD in the Humanities grant, is set to find out.
Four years of funding
Leiden-based PhD candidate Cora Leder has been awarded one of the Netherlands’ most competitive early-career research grants: the NWO PhD in the Humanities. The award gives her four years of full funding to carry out an ambitious and innovative research project—one she designed entirely herself. ‘It means I now have four fully funded years to put into my PhD research,’ Leder explains. ‘I spearheaded this project entirely from the ground up. I’ll be executing the entire thing with the support of my fantastic supervision team, which is incredibly exciting.’
Hand-made
At the heart of her research is a deceptively simple question: how did Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens use their hands in making stone tools? The answer, however, requires cutting-edge methodology, interdisciplinary collaboration, and a lot of bones. ‘To put it simply, the project is about how Neanderthals and early modern humans used their hands during stone tool production,’ says Leder. ‘Were there behavioural differences? Could those differences explain aspects of their material cultures? I’m looking at whether habitual behaviour played a role in the cultural divergence we see between these two species.’
Adapting bones
Leder’s approach is notably interdisciplinary. Her research blends bioarchaeology, osteology, biomechanics, and experimental archaeology. ‘All muscles attach to bone, and when you use those muscles a lot, the bone adapts,’ she explains. ‘You see changes in the bone surface where the muscles are anchored. In the upper arm it’s more obvious, like with the biceps, but in the hand it’s more complex. It’s all part of an interconnected web.’
Her focus is on muscle synergies: the coordinated activity of muscle groups during specific actions like gripping, pinching, or applying torque. Unlike previous research, which has often focused on thumbs and index fingers, Leder is shifting attention to the lesser-studied fifth digit, the pinky. ‘It’s actually extremely important as an antagonist in gripping. If you want to secure something in your hand, you need that supporting structure. But in archaeology, we haven’t really looked into that yet. That’s a gap I hope to address.’
Anatomical mysteries
To explore these anatomical mysteries, Leder will examine a large sample of recent skeletal remains. Why not jump straight into ancient fossils? ‘Because archaeology has made huge advances in excavation and analytical methods over the past decade,’ she says. ‘We now understand more about muscle synergy and how to use certain bones as proxies. These recent remains let us build that foundational knowledge and apply it to the fossil record.’
Eventually, her findings will be tested on the hands of at least 16 Neanderthal and early Homo sapiens individuals, with more specimens expected as new excavations come to light. She will also engage in experimental archaeology, working with external supervisors at the University of Tübingen to recreate stone tool use and measure muscle activity using surface electromyography. ‘It’s a well-established method in biomedicine,’ Leder notes, ‘but it’s only occasionally used in archaeology. We’re adapting it in exciting new ways.’
A Multidisciplinary Toolkit
Leder’s project doesn’t just break ground in archaeological theory, it’s also equipping her with a formidable range of research skills. ‘For this project I’m learning 3D morphometrics, programming, statistics, it's a rich toolkit. That’s crucial for me. I want to learn as many interesting skills as I can within this research. And honestly, it’s also just how my brain works.’
Her PhD is co-supervised by Dr. Sarah Schrader and Prof. Marie Soressi, both leading scholars in the fields of bioarchaeology and Paleolithic archaeology.
With a clear vision, passionate curiosity, and now full funding from the NWO, Cora Leder is set to transform the way we think about early human hands, and the objects these created.