ABOVE: Researchers determined the internal brain case structure of early Homo skulls from Dmanisi, Georgia, using computed tomography and virtual reconstruction.
M. PONCE DE LEÓN AND C. ZOLLIKOFER, UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH
Researchers have assumed that by the time members of the genus Homo, which includes both modern humans and our ancestors, dispersed from Africa, they had large brains organized more like those of people than of apes. In a study published today (April 8) in Science, the authors analyzed the fossilized skulls of hominins, including five individuals who lived in Western Asia more than 1.7 million years ago. These humans had brains that were about half the size of modern brains and organized more like the brains of modern great apes.
“Nobody would have expected the brain of Homo to be apelike,” says Dean Falk, an evolutionary anthropologist at Florida State University and the School for Advanced Research in New Mexico ...
