"Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimeters to 1,350 cc, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball. The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion... "This happened in China, Europe, Africa - everywhere we look." If our brain keeps dwindling at that rate over the next 20,000 years, it will start to approach the size of that found in Homo erectus, a relative that lived half a million years ago..."
An excerpt from "The Incredible Shrinking Brain," by Kathleen McAuliffe, in the September 2010 issue of Discover Magazine.
Maybe that tennis ball sized hunk of brain is the portion that goes along with eating and keeping our butts from getting eaten.
ReplyDeleteSneaking up on a stalk of wheat or ear of corn doesn't take much brain power. Chicken and Sheep are easy to trick into pots. Sabre-Tooth Tigers might need a bit of brain to avoid reliably.
Seems like this is a good thing given the mismatch between infant head size and adult female pelvis size.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this actually means much about intelligence. We get smarter every year - it's called the Flynn effect
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article. Is the brain becoming more refined? Do we need less brain mass as our daily lives become less involved in brute physical survival, especially agression/self defense? Nolandda has a great point, too. It would seem that smaller craniums (crania?) contribute to survival by not endangering mother and child during birth.
ReplyDeletewell, computers are getting smaller while capable of ever increasing amounts of power. Maybe our brains are just getting more space-efficient with all the squiggles and stuff. "squiggles", of course, is the scientific term.
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