Modern Human Brain Shape Evolved Gradually, Ushering in Modern Behavior (2 of 6) (IMAGE)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

Modern Human Brain Shape Evolved Gradually, Ushering in Modern Behavior (2 of 6)

Caption

Brain shape evolution in Homo sapiens. The left image shows brain shape as reconstructed based on micro computed tomographic scans of one of the earliest known members of our species, the fossil cranium Jebel Irhoud 1, dated to about 300,000 years. Brain shape, and possibly brain function, evolved gradually, and have reached the globularity typical for present-day humans (right image) only by about 35,000 years ago. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the 24 January 2018, issue of Science Advances, published by AAAS. The paper, by S. Neubauer at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues was titled, "The evolution of modern human brain shape."

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[Credit: Simon Neubauer, MPI EVA Leipzig (License: CC-BY-SA 4.0)]

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