The Right Hand: Left-Handedness

Throughout history, left-handedness has been viewed as being the mark of the devil, as evidence of mental retardation or neurosis, as showing a predisposition to criminality, or as being linked to every perceived social ill. Even into the nineteenth century, many scientists were of the opinion that left-handedness was the sign of a sinister personality. An eminent ethnologist and one of the first scientific archaeologists, Daniel Wilson (1816-92), who introduced into English the word ‘prehistoric’, became aware of the fact that there were as many left-handed Stone Age implements as right. As a left-hander himself, he was fascinated by these discoveries. Published in 1891, his last major work gives the results of his studies of left-handedness, which he concludes is hereditary and relates to the dominance of one hemisphere of the brain.