Paleoanthropology of cognition: an overview on Hominins brain evolution

Recent advances in neurobiology, paleontology, and paleogenetics allow us to associate changes in brain size and organization with three main "moments" of increased behavioral complexity and, more speculatively, language development. First, Australopiths display a significant increase in brain size relative to the great apes and an incipient extension of postnatal brain development. However, their cortical organization remains essentially similar to that of apes. Second, over the last 2 My, with two notable exceptions, brain size increases dramatically, partly in relation to changes in body size. Differential enlargements and reorganizations of cortical areas lay the foundation for the "language-ready" brain and cumulative culture of later Homo species. Third, in Homo sapiens, brain size remains fairly stable over the last 300,000 years but an important cerebral reorganization takes place. It affects the frontal and temporal lobes, the parietal areas and the cerebellum and resulted in a more globular shape of the brain. These changes are associated, among others, with an increased development of long-distance-horizontal-connections. A few regulatory genetic events took place in the course of this hominization process with, in particular, enhanced neuronal proliferation and global brain connectivity.