Hominin Chart

In 1-2 pages, not including cover page or chart, please answer the following questions: What trends/patterns do you see across ALL species in the following rows: brain size, facial traits, and changes in upper/lower body as they relate to locomotion? Why may these trends have been adaptive for human survival?

Example: In the area of tool traditions, a trend that I noticed is that the tool traditions gradually include a larger number of diverse tools. For instance, for Australopithecus afarensis the tools are limited to cores and flakes with sharp edges. As new species evolve, tools types become more numerous (cores, flakes, and hand axes for Homo erectus, cores, flakes, hand axes, lissiors, and spear heads for Homo neanderthalensis; etc.). Having a variety of tool types would have been adaptive for humans to take advantage of different food resources for survival, to reduce the time and danger it takes to get food, and to allow for greater protection with weaponry.

Hominin Chart Answer

From the chart, it can be clearly observed that the average brain size, beginning from P. bosei up to modern H. sapiens, has significantly increased. Though researchers, anthropologists, and scientists have intensively studied the association between brain size and intelligence, they found no clear and strong evidence that the size of our brains accounts for our intellectual supremacy compared to our ancestors. The brains of H. neanderthalensis, for instance, can reach up to 1700 cc, which is relatively bigger than our 1500 average brain size. But this finding did not translate to higher intelligence or more advanced skills compared to modern humans