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Brain Evolution (Absolute Brain Size (Humans have much greater cranial…
Brain Evolution
Absolute Brain Size
Humans have much greater cranial capacity (brain volume) than great apes and old world monkeys (Falk, 2006)
Use endocasts from skull to compare extinct and extant species . But don't show fine details of brain anatomy. Have shown brain volume increase drastically over 4 million years.
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Relative brain size
Jerison (1973) brain corrected for body size. Brain bigger because body bigger. Compared relationship brain weight to body weight in different species = human brain size larger than predicted from body weight
Encephlisation Quotient - ratio between actual brain size to expected brain size . Human largest EQ compared to other primates
Evolution of specific brain areas: neocortex. Finlay & Darlington (1995) measured subdivision of brain and compared over 100 species . Found cerebral cortex evolved faster than other brain areas
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Where did we come from?
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FOXP2 gene critical for language. Mutations in human version not present in other species, related to unique ability to use language? Evidence of family whose gene is disrupted and have problems using language and grammar (Varga-Khadem, 2005). Other primates have gene but not mutation and also don't have language (Enard et al 2002)
If mutation around for 200,000 years Neanderthals should have human variants. compared using DNA from fossils of extinct and extant species. (Krause et al 2007) found Yes Neanderthals shared human variant of FOXP2
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