A study carried out by a team of paleontologists from the University of Malaga (Spain) and collected by the journal PLoS One has investigated the evolution of the human face from chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos or orangutans to modern man today .
One of the most outstanding conclusions of the research is that in all of them there is a parameter that is repeated in the head: the larger the neurocranium (the bony covering that covers the brain, the cranial meninges and the adjacent membranous covers), the more great is also the face . “A chimpanzee and a gorilla have the same size brain, but the gorilla has a much larger skull and therefore so is its face,” explains Paul Palmqvist, leader of the study.
According to the researchers, who have analyzed skulls of various species of australopithecines that lived in Africa about 3.5 million years ago, their faces seem to conform to this same evolutionary norm over time; a continuous and stable process. With the appearance of the genus “Homo”, the face began to shrink and the skull to grow as a result of the increasing size of the brain. The last step in this advance, which represents a radical change in physiology, was reached with Homo sapiens, which is the one with the smallest and narrowest face of all known hominids .
“A study like this had never been done; all species have the same speed of variation ”in the morphology of the face despite the differences between them, clarifies Palmqvist.
Why did the morphology of the face begin to change to make room for a larger brain and a smaller face in contrast to the previous physical pattern? According to the authors, the Homo “were adapting to a totally new environment and situation ,” says Juan Antonio Pérez, co-author of the work. All of this led to their diet and habits changing as well. Considering that the human brain needs 22% of the body’s energy (and a chimpanzee brain only 8%), physiology “chose” that setting to balance the new status .
