A new study* provides new insight on the evolution of brain size among human ancestors and related species over a period of about 7 million years. The research by a team of scientists, published in a study report by Thomas A. Püschel, et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, employed a phylogenetic approach to paleoanthropological data from fossil specimens across a variety of hominin species through a timeline of approximately 7 million years. The results indicated that relative brain size increases across this time span arose from differential increases recorded within individual species. They also found that any variation in brain size after accounting for this effect was associated with body mass differences, not time. Moreover, the analysis showed that the within-species increases escalated in the more recent lineages, suggesting an overall pattern of accelerated increasing brain size in the later time periods.
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Article Source: PNAS news release.
*Thomas A. Püschel , et al., Hominin brain size increase has emerged from within-species encephalization, PNAS, 26-Nov-2024. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2409542121
Cover Image, Top Left: Lateral cranial comparison of hominin species. Hawks et al. (9 May 2017). “New fossil remains of Homo naledi from the Lesedi Chamber, South Africa”. eLife, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
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