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Home
Endocranial Volumes And Human Evolution.

Home
Endocranial Volumes And Human Evolution.

Related Experiment Video

Analysis of Craniomaxillofacial Malformations in Mice Using Three-dimensional Microcomputed Tomography

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Endocranial volumes and human evolution.

Ian Tattersall¹

¹Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, 10014, USA.

|September 25, 2023

View abstract on PubMed

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Human brain evolution was not a consistent trend; brain size increased episodically and independently in different Homo lineages. Modern human brain shrinkage suggests a departure from this pattern, not its culmination.

Keywords:

brain expansion cognition endocranial volumes evolution hominin human

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Area of Science:

Paleoanthropology
Human Evolution
Neuroscience

Background:

Hominin brain enlargement is often cited as a hallmark of human evolution.
Endocranial volume increased fourfold over seven million years, with later hominids generally having larger brains than earlier ones.

Purpose of the Study:

To critically examine the trend of hominin brain enlargement.
To investigate the drivers and patterns of brain size changes throughout human evolution.

Main Methods:

Analysis of hominin endocranial volume data over evolutionary timescales.
Comparative study of brain size trends across different hominin lineages and environments.

Main Results:

The apparent trend of brain enlargement was episodic and irregular, not continuous.

Brain volume increase occurred independently in at least three separate lineages of the genus Homo.

Recent brain shrinkage in Homo sapiens indicates a departure from the overall enlargement trend.

Conclusions:

The drivers of hominin brain enlargement likely involved broad environmental and geographical stimuli, not solely internal social factors.
Modern human cognition, associated with symbolic processing and language, emerged during a period of brain size reduction, signifying a divergence from prior evolutionary trends.