Mans hand Coloured Xray of the healthy hand of a man showing the arrangement of its bones An outline of the flesh of the hand is seen Bones of the hand consist of eight small carpals in the wrist yellow which articulate with the two long forearm bones at bottom Five metacarpal bones green make up the palm of the hand Each finger has three phalanges except the thumb which has two such bones This skeleton enables the human hand to be used with great flexibility helped especially by the joint between the wrist and the opposable thumb This welladapted hand allowed our ancestors to use tools facilitating human evolution