So just how important is a big brain?

in #science7 years ago

Early thoughts on human evolution supposed that the big brain came first and then the rest of our humanness followed.

This is why the British scientific establishment was so easily hoodwinked by the Piltdown man forgeries and why Leakey was so keen for nutcracker man not to be classified as a small brained Australopithecene. He simply did not want to accept that all the stone tools found at the same level as the skull could have been made by something that was not as close to being considered human or in the human direct line.

Most recently we now have another small brained disturber of the peace.

Homo Naledi...

This species is at least classed as homo and considered very close to humans in the evolutionary tree but it has a rather small brain, about the size of an orange or about one third the size of a modern homo sapiens. Dating of some of the bones puts this species as still surviving down to the time that early sapiens were emerging and they may have shared the word stage together.

Homo Naledi made a stir at the time of unveiling due to the fact that there seems to be evidence of very human like behavior in secreting away their dead, since the bone material was recovered from a location and in a way that is most easily explained by it being a place where dead bodies wore purposely deposited.

Homo Naledi has quickly become one of the species that we now have a very significant and substantial amount of fossil material. It is only eclipsed by modern humans and neanderthals.

From a number of specimens it has been able to develop brain endocasts from the inside of the skull. These are showing that despite the small size of the brain it is markedly human like

The team found that naledi’s frontal lobe was similar to humans, but differed to the great apes. Other hominins in our family line share features of this frontal lobe.
What this brain allowed naledi to do, believe the researchers, is make sophisticated stone tools and have complicated social structures. But the researchers won’t go so far as to say whether this brain allowed for language.
“It’s too soon to speculate about language or communication in Homo naledi,” explained another co-author Shawn Hurst. “But today human language relies upon this brain region.”

Pics and quote from where you can read more found at:
https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2018-05-15-a-small-brained-relative-is-about-to-shake-up-our-family-tree/?utm_source=homepagify#.Wwble0iFPIX

So now we have a small brain that was not only capable of making tools but matches the structures needed for language.

So much for those who sat in armchairs and quietly and conveniently mapped out evolution's path as a simplistic progressive straight line following a logically deducible and assumed course.

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Thanks here for a wonderful subject since human evolution ! The debate about how much intelligence depends on the volume of the brain has not abated for many years. Some believe that there is no correlation here, remembering Einstein's brain, which was smaller than the average man, some on the contrary defend the view that size matters. And, it seems, in the case of animals really does.

I think being bipedals with opposable thumbs is really what helped us out. That makes it possible for a group of humans to kill virtually any other animal.

Humans have been so egotistical to think they are the best thing our biosphere has ever produced. Many other animals use tools - even birds use tools and they are "bird-brained". Dolphins and whales are very smart and communicate through sound. Without our ability to manipulate our environment, I think the sizes of our heads would make us easy prey for predators.

There's a local band's song about this! Fascinating.

Another fact to back up human evolution from the scientific approach. Great one

Fascinating to know about human evolution through these valuable pieces.

People do not need big brains. People just have to be smart and know how to love. Because our world is in very bad condition. Now, Some big-minded fools run our world.

If it is true that the size of human brain is directly proportional to the human evolution, today we should have very big heads :D

Thank you for the great article. I love science and it's a sad day that it's become controversial for the purposes of politics. I tend to wonder if we have any recent Homo Naledi descendants in office right now.

the evolution is a part of human being... if you see the inventions of human it gives the all answer of evolution..... the change of environment is the reason of evolution.... if see the past history human was so big and live so long but now a days human live so short life and their size decresses....

So much for those who sat in armchairs and quietly and conveniently mapped out evolution's path as a simplistic progressive straight line following a logically deducible and assumed course.

I've always had a problem with this. I don't in any way support Darwin's theory of evolution. New discoveries keep coming up that negates his theory. Let's see what scientists have to say about homo naledy

Wow, very detailed information about cavemen . We need someone like you in our steemstem community plssssssss.@gavvet

Wow....
This is really educating and fascinating @gavvet
But can we now say that the Naledi's and the Sapiens brain has similar structure and function???
If really they do then i think the researchers won't be wrong to speculate that the brain in Naledi gives room for language and communication as it does in Sapiens which is due to the presence of Frontal lobe that is common to both but differen from other apes.

Once again sir. This article is mind blowing.
Thanks so much for sharing sir.

These are the kinds of issues that make a lot of debate science vs. religion, science really checks where we come from the evolution of the human being, instead the religion has a lot of incoherence and there is no evidence of anything

Still there is anecdot that says that the greater the brain volume will be more intelligent. can anyone prove scientifically?

This is very interesting.
Although it is expected to find evolutionary variety of our species.
It is said that the evolution of the human being was due to the need to survive, to change the environment in which the ancestors were surrounded, that due to the physical change in which they were subjected to practice and the intake of new foods there was also started an evolution not only physical but biological in its organisms.
The truth seems to me very curious that by that factor we are what we are today.

I think the continued discovery of new stages and species of humankind are fascinating. As an educator, it makes the learning of our past so relevant as we see more and more new findings catalogued and examined.

I think the continued discovery of new stages and species of humankind are fascinating. As an educator, it makes the learning of our past so relevant as we see more and more new findings catalogued and examined.

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Thats why i love evolution..it is very interesting to hear that not only people with big brain are smarter but also those with small brain can do extraordinary things.

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