New research published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution contributes to a long-running debate about why archaic hominins had gigantic brow ridges while anatomically modern humans evolved flatter foreheads.
A Homo heidelbergensis, a Neanderthal and a Cro-Magnon. Image credit: SINC / José Antonio Peñas.
Like the antlers on a stag, a pronounced brow ridge was a permanent signal of dominance and aggression in our ancestors, which anatomically modern humans traded in for a smooth forehead with more visible, hairy eyebrows capable of a greater range of movement.
Highly mobile eyebrows gave us the communication skills to establish large, social networks; in particular to express more nuanced emotions such as recognition and sympathy, allowing for greater understanding and cooperation between people.
“Modern humans are the last surviving hominin. While our sister species the Neanderthals were dying out, we were rapidly colonizing the globe and surviving in extreme environments. This had a lot to do with our ability to create large social networks — we know, for example, that prehistoric modern humans avoided inbreeding and went to stay with friends in distant locations during hard times,” said study co-author Dr. Penny Spikins, from the University of York, UK.
“Eyebrow movements allow us to express complex emotions as well as perceive the emotions of others. A rapid ‘eyebrow flash’ is a cross-cultural sign of recognition and openness to social interaction and pulling our eyebrows up at the middle is an expression of sympathy.”
“Tiny movements of the eyebrows are also a key component to identifying trustworthiness and deception. On the flip side it has been shown that people who have had botox which limits eyebrow movement are less able to empathize and identify with the emotions of others.”
“Eyebrows are the missing part of the puzzle of how modern humans managed to get on so much better with each other than other now-extinct hominins.”
“Looking at other animals can offer interesting clues as to what the function of a prominent brow ridge may have been,” said study senior author Professor Paul O’Higgins, also from the University of York.
“In mandrills, dominant males have brightly colored swellings on either side of their muzzles to display their status. The growth of these lumps is triggered by hormonal factors and the bones underlying them are pitted with microscopic craters, a feature that can also be seen in the brow bones of archaic hominins.”
“Sexually dimorphic display and social signaling is a convincing explanation for the jutting brows of our ancestors. Their conversion to a more vertical brow in modern humans allowed for the display of friendlier emotions which helped form social bonds between individuals.”
Using 3D engineering software, Dr. Spikins, Professor O’Higgins and their colleague, Dr. Ricardo Godinho, also from the University of York, looked at the iconic brow ridge of Kabwe 1, a fossilized skull (300,000-125,000 years old) of the archaic hominin Homo heidelbergensis.
The team discounted two theories commonly put forward to explain protruding brow ridges: that they were needed to fill the space where the flat brain cases and eye sockets of archaic hominins met, and that the ridge acted to stabilize their skulls from the force of chewing.
“We used modeling software to shave back Kabwe 1’s huge brow ridge and found that the heavy brow offered no spatial advantage as it could be greatly reduced without causing a problem,” said Dr. Godinho, lead author on the study.
“Then we simulated the forces of biting on different teeth and found that very little strain was placed on the brow ridge. When we took the ridge away there was no effect on the rest of the face when biting.”
“Since the shape of the brow ridge is not driven by spatial and mechanical requirements alone, and other explanations for brow ridges such as keeping sweat or hair out of eyes have already been discounted, we suggest a plausible contributing explanation can be found in social communication.”
Our communicative foreheads started off as a side-effect of our faces getting gradually smaller over the past 100,000 years.
This process has become particularly rapid in last 20,000 years and more recently, as we switched from being hunter gatherers to agriculturalists, a lifestyle that meant less variety in both diet and physical effort.
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Ricardo Miguel Godinho et al. Supraorbital morphology and social dynamics in human evolution. Nature Ecology & Evolution, published online April 9, 2018; doi: 10.1038/s41559-018-0528-0
