Early Homo Cerebellum Enlarged

South AfricaEarly Homo’s posterior cerebellum outgrew Australopithecus’s, brain reconstructions from fossil casts show.

Temporoparietal regions tied in modern humans to social communication and tool use also enlarged.

Researchers built brain models of Australopithecus africanus, Homo habilis and Homo ergaster from computed tomography scans of fossil skull casts.

Relative frontal lobe volume stayed largely unchanged across the sampled fossils.

The authors offer the models as a framework for testing hypotheses about regional brain evolution in extinct hominins.

Sources: Nature