Evolution of the Human Brain

>> YOUR LINK HERE: ___ http://youtube.com/watch?v=BEkLsH0KR_Q

This short film explores the evolution of the human brain, as revealed by the fossil record. • Human brain size has tripled since the time of our distant ancestors, the australopithecines, who first emerged around 4 million years ago. Homo habilis evolved 2.1 million years ago and had a much larger brain and may also have had the ability to speak due to the expansion of the Broca’s area in the brain region. Homo Erectus appeared subsequently; these hominins were taller, had much larger brains and, significantly, they were the first of our human ancestors to leave Africa and migrate around the world. • Neanderthals are the closest evolutionary relatives to anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) and remarkably, they had brains broadly comparable in size to ours. Comparison of fossil DNA from Neanderthals which the genome of modern humans living today has suggested that a developmental feature called brain plasticity has allowed Homo sapiens to adapt to quite different environments and enabled the creation of wonderful and magnificent feats such as music and technology. • This short film was created by a team of three final year undergraduate students at NUI Galway for the module @History Of Life: • Jack Megannety: Illustrations, animations and editing • Kitty McMahon: Illustrations and animations • Linda Breslin: Script and narration • [Homo Amazing Productions] • Thanks to Dr John Murray (Earth and Ocean Sciences, NUI Galway) for providing us the opportunity to create and share this film on brain evolution. • Hope you enjoy watching! • Copyright free background music sourced from pixabay.com • https://pixabay.com/music/meditations... • For further information on the evolution of the human brain, please see the following: • Bruner (2007) Cranial shape and size variation in human evolution: structural and functional perspectives. https://link.springer.com/article/10.... • Bruner (2020) The fossil evidence for human brain evolution, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science... • Gómez-Robles Sherwood (2017) Human brain evolution: How the increase of brain plasticity made us a cultural species. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/5117/5117... • Neubauer, Hublin Gunz (2018) The evolution of modern human brain shape https://advances.sciencemag.org/conte...

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