Book contents
- African Genesis:
- Series page
- African Genesis
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- 1 African Genesis: an evolving paradigm
- 2 Academic genealogy
- Part I In search of origins: evolutionary theory, new species and paths into the past
- Part II Hominin morphology through time: brains, bodies and teeth
- 8 Hominin brain evolution, 1925–2011: an emerging overview
- 9 The issue of brain reorganisation in Australopithecus and early hominids: Dart had it right
- 10 The mass of the human brain: is it a spandrel?
- 11 Origin and diversity of early hominin bipedalism
- 12 Forelimb adaptations in Australopithecus afarensis
- 13 Hominin proximal femur morphology from the Tugen Hills to Flores
- 14 Daily rates of dentine formation and root extension rates in Paranthropus boisei, KNM-ER 1817, from Koobi Fora, Kenya
- 15 On the evolutionary development of early hominid molar teeth and the Gondolin Paranthropus molar
- 16 Digital South African fossils: morphological studies using reference-based reconstruction and electronic preparation
- Part III Modern human origins: patterns and processes
- Part IV In search of context: hominin environments, behaviour and lithic cultures
- Index
- Plate Section
10 - The mass of the human brain: is it a spandrel?
from Part II - Hominin morphology through time: brains, bodies and teeth
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2012
- African Genesis:
- Series page
- African Genesis
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Foreword
- Acknowledgements
- 1 African Genesis: an evolving paradigm
- 2 Academic genealogy
- Part I In search of origins: evolutionary theory, new species and paths into the past
- Part II Hominin morphology through time: brains, bodies and teeth
- 8 Hominin brain evolution, 1925–2011: an emerging overview
- 9 The issue of brain reorganisation in Australopithecus and early hominids: Dart had it right
- 10 The mass of the human brain: is it a spandrel?
- 11 Origin and diversity of early hominin bipedalism
- 12 Forelimb adaptations in Australopithecus afarensis
- 13 Hominin proximal femur morphology from the Tugen Hills to Flores
- 14 Daily rates of dentine formation and root extension rates in Paranthropus boisei, KNM-ER 1817, from Koobi Fora, Kenya
- 15 On the evolutionary development of early hominid molar teeth and the Gondolin Paranthropus molar
- 16 Digital South African fossils: morphological studies using reference-based reconstruction and electronic preparation
- Part III Modern human origins: patterns and processes
- Part IV In search of context: hominin environments, behaviour and lithic cultures
- Index
- Plate Section
Summary
The current chapter examines allometric exponents as they apply to the evolution of the size, or mass, of the modern human brain relative to the mass of the body. The mass of the brain is considered as a single level of organisation of the nervous system and is treated separately to other levels of organisation. A comprehensive dataset is used to examine the relationship between brain and body mass in primates and hominids. This analysis allows us to postulate that the evolution of the size of the human brain can, for the most part, be accounted for by scaling with body size. There appears to be a minimum of two potential adaptive events that have led to alterations in the scaling laws that help explain the actual mass of the human brain. These two events occur at the origin of primates and the origin of the hominid lineage. These scaling laws appear to obviate much of the need for adaptationist explanations in terms of the evolution of the mass of the human brain.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- African GenesisPerspectives on Hominin Evolution, pp. 181 - 204Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
- 2
- Cited by