ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2015
Brain ontogeny and life history in Pleistocene hominins.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.
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Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed.
- Cognitive correlates of human endurance.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Complex and diverse patterns of neurocranial development in Australopithecus, Paranthropus and Homo.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Sex determination using image processing reveals elliptical features of the female pelvic inlet.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Cooperative Breeding as a Likely Early Catalyst of Human Evolution.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Review
- Functional analysis of CYP4B1 enzymes from apes and humans uncovers evolutionary hot spots for adaptations of the catalytical function.PLoS genetics · 2025Article
- Investigating Development in Human Evolution: Specificities, Challenges, and Opportunities.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Review
- A Novel Approach to Study Cranial Shape in Children with Normal and Sagittal Synostosis: An Application of Geometric Morphometrics.Neurologia medico-chirurgica · 2025Article
- A multi-layered integrative analysis reveals a cholesterol metabolic program in outer radial glia with implications for human brain evolution.Development (Cambridge, England) · 2024Article
- 3.3 million years of stone tool complexity suggests that cumulative culture began during the Middle Pleistocene.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- The evolution of human altriciality and brain development in comparative context.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Variation and convergence in the morpho-functional properties of the mammalian neocortex.Frontiers in systems neuroscience · 2024Review
- Article
- From fossils to mind.Communications biology · 2023Review
- Teeth, prenatal growth rates, and the evolution of human-like pregnancy in laterProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Exploring the relationship between soft and hard tissues: The example of vertebral arteries and transverse foramina.Journal of anatomy · 2022Article
- Pan-Africanism vs. single-origin of Homo sapiens: Putting the debate in the light of evolutionary biology.Evolutionary anthropology · 2022Review
- Brain region-specific effects of nearly fixed sapiens-derived alleles.BMC genomic data · 2022Article
- Different environmental variables predict body and brain size evolution in Homo.Nature communications · 2021Article
- Sex differences in the pelvis did not evolve de novo in modern humans.Nature ecology & evolution · 2021Article
- Demographic uniformitarianism: the theoretical basis of prehistoric demographic research and its cross-disciplinary challenges.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Review
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3 authors.
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Abstract
A high level of encephalization is critical to the human adaptive niche and emerged among hominins over the course of the past 2 Myr. Evolving larger brains required important adaptive adjustments, in particular regarding energy allocation and life history. These adaptations included a relatively small brain at birth and a protracted growth of highly dependent offspring within a complex social environment. In turn, the extended period of growth and delayed maturation of the brain structures of humans contribute to their cognitive complexity. The current palaeoanthropological evidence shows that, regarding life history and brain ontogeny, the Pleistocene hominin taxa display different patterns and that one cannot simply contrast an 'ape-model' to a 'human-model'. Large-brained hominins such as Upper Pleistocene Neandertals have evolved along their own evolutionary pathway and can be distinguished from modern humans in terms of growth pattern and brain development. The life-history pattern and brain ontogeny of extant humans emerged only recently in the course of human evolution.
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