Not Round, Analysis Results Call This The Initial Form Of The Human Brain

Illustration (Anna Shvets/Pexels)

JAKARTA - The results of a fossil analysis that includes the oldest known specimen of Homo sapiens reveal that the brain shape of our species changes over time to be less elongated and more round, a change that seems to accommodate key developments in its function.

Scientists say they are researching the size and brain shape of 20 of the older Homo sapiens fossils dating back to 300,000 years. While the size of the brain has remained largely unchanged over time, its shape gradually changes to be more unanimous until it reaches the latest shape between 100,000 and 35,000 years ago.

Physic anthropology expert Simon Neubauer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany said two features that contributed to the prominent globular shape were: a growing area of the brain and small brain.

"The parietal lobe is an important center in connecting different parts of the brain and engaging in functions such as orientation, attention, and sensory transformation underlying the planning and integration of visuospatial," said Neubauer, a study leader whose results were published in the journal Science Advances.

"Small brain is involved in motor-related functions such as coordination of movement and balance, but also functions such as memory work, language, social cognition and affective processing (emotional)," added Neubauer.

Neubauer said the brain's globularity in human brain development now appears for several months around birth time.

"Our new data shows evolutionary changes at the beginning of brain development in the critical period and are vulnerable to neural preparation and cognitive development," he said.

The time period when the human brain shape that now appears is in line with archaeological evidence that humans achieved what he called a "full series of modernity behavior" about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago according to Neubauer. This includes "indicators of material manipulation of symbols and abstract thoughts" such as art creation and decoration, use of pigments, burial of bodies, complicated multi-component tools and bone carvings, Neubauer added.

The earliest known Homo sapien fossil, 300.000 years old from a site in Morocco and 195.000 years old from a site in Ethiopia, has an elongated brain like that of Neanderthal humans, the closest relatives of our species that went extinct tens of thousands of years ago, while fossils from the future become more surrounding. The researchers analyzed the fossils of Homo sapiens from north, east and south of Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

"Our findings add to the accumulation of archaeological and paleoanthropological evidence showing that Homo sapiens are a growing species with deep African roots and an all-time gradual change in modernity behavior, brain organization and perhaps brain function," Neubauer said. as quoted by the Reuters news agency.