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Mind - Primary Cause of Human Evolution: Volume 1

by Clare V. Merry

389 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-0355; ISBN 1-4120-5457-5; US$30.00, C$34.08, EUR24.50, £17.50

The main contention of this series is that Man's mind, manifested in cultural adaptation to the environment through lifestyle, has driven his and her own morphological evolution.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

This first book proposes that Man has developed different types of human intelligence over the past three million years. It is part of a series which is a rewriting of prehistory that does not include the ape-man hypothesis.

Volume 1 focuses on the mechanisms of evolution of brain size and the true basis for intelligence which I propose is not brain size, but brain surface area ie. the convoluted cerebral cortex.

A new method of situating fossil specimens within the characteristics of their population is pioneered which enables a readily intelligible comparison with modern populations. The reasons for diversity in body type in Lower Palaeolithic and modern populations is related not only to climate, but also to life style, particularly the habitual form of locomotion and degree to which it is practiced.

The author supplies as much data as was found available on the related subjects such that the reader can make their own assessment. The ground breaking ideas which have resulted from this quest to develop new theory could well become areas for new research and investigation.

The analytical and theoretical tools developed in this book are used to analyse the extraordinary new find of Homo floresiensis which is found to be linked to the H. africanus / habilis taxonomic group, rather than being a dwarfed form of Homo erectus. The very small brain of Homo floresiensis is, in fact, archaeological embodiment of the central thesis of this book, namely that prehistoric Man could have a small brain and be intelligent.

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About the Author

The author obtained a BSc honours degree in anthropology and aociology at Oxford Brookes University, England in 1984, then a Licence in 1988 and a Maîtrise in 1990 at Aix-en-Provence University, France. Subsequently she went to Chile and lived as a shanty town landlady letting properties for 11 years. During this time she worked on community projects, brought up four children and pursued her own interests, preparing material for a series of five books in anthropology.

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Excerpts

Page 110 Childbirth
Selection pressures work to maintain the proportionality between the female pelvis and the fetus in natural environments, and even today this is very costly for women and only avoided in places where surgical intervention is readily at hand. Nature's own answer to cephalopelvic disproportion has been the development of the phenomenon of moulding which even in populations with brachycephalic shaped skulls returns the newborn skull temporarily to the skull shape of Homo erectus characterized by an effaced forehead and dolichocephaly.

Page 176-177 Archaic Traits
The Spanish researchers follow the line that the wide pelvis was a primitive trait exhibited in Australopithecus, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neandertalensis, while the narrower pelvis is a modern trait of Homo sapiens which makes modern Man more efficient at bipedal locomotion. Other researchers such as Walker follow the opposite line; they believe that Homo erectus had a narrow pelvis as seen in KNM-WT 15000 and this was a primitive trait which made him or her highly efficient at running, while modern humans evolved a wide pelvis better for giving birth, but less efficient for running. The fatal flaw in both arguments is the preoccupation with the term Œprimitive*. What I have found is that both wide and narrow pelves exist in populations today and to talk about primitive or modern traits is to overlook the real reasons for the co-existence of different types.

Page 203 Scavenging
- Scavenging ''..... depends on the success and appetite of local carnivores, or the fortuitous butchering of animals caught in natural traps.'' (Wolpoff 1980, page 170). We must assume that the population of lions or leopards, for example, would have to be quite large for them to provide enough carcasses for the 'hominid' population to scavenge. Since these predators are consuming the meat on the carcass, while 'hominids' are only consuming the scraps and a few grams of raw bone marrow, the biomass of the former would greatly exceed the biomass of the latter. So it seems that to have many large carnivores in an environment providing many kill sites would be a good thing for a scavenger. However, we are told that these 'hominids' have no weapons; they also have no morphological defences such as claws, canines, tusks or horns; and they have no survival strategies such as 'safety in numbers' that herd animals have. Under these circumstances the 'hominid' and his or her children are going to be a very easy prey for these predators. Thus, the interaction is between the 'hominid' and the predator which both provides the 'hominid' with food and eats him too: one can scarcely conceive of such an example in a food chain! If you were the 'hominid', it would be like seeing your name on next week's menu and wondering why you still go to that canteen. You are food for your food provider. Perhaps the scavenging hypothesis should be renamed the 'Catch 22 hypothesis'.

Page 299 Cranial suture type
During the period of growth throughout childhood and possibly beyond, the brain increases in size due to learning leading to an increase in the number of neuron connections. This exerts pressure on the brain case which makes the bony plates, connected by cartilage at the sutures, begin to pull apart. As the bony plates grow, they send out protuberances to try to bridge the gap filled only by cartilage to keep the skull together. If the brain continues to grow it will continue to pull the cranium apart at the sutures, and the bony protuberances will grow longer. The longer this process goes on, the more complicated the sutures become. See Figure 12.6 When brain growth is curtailed, the suture will rest with the degree of complication already attained. Later as brain shrinkage sets in, the bony protuberances complete their task in bridging the gap and the adjoining cranial plates will knit together fusing the suture, and eventually obliterating it. In parts of the skull where brain growth is not significant, the cranial plates simply meet up and juxtapose along harmonious sutures. If education is very deficient the sutures of the vault will tend to be simple. Thus, suture type is a developmental feature, dependent on the degree of learning and continuation of learning in the individual. Where complication has widened the sutures, it has also caused an increase in cranial capacity.

Page 301 Convolutions of the cortex
The cerebral cortex or grey matter varies in thickness but is on average 3 mm thick and the total volume of an adult cortex is between 230 cc and 561 cc (Blinkov 1968, page 172). We are entertaining the idea that this grey matter can push out more space for itself through its growth pattern of convolutions. See Figure 12.7 The grey matter can certainly push itself into the endocranial table bone and leave the imprint of convolutions on the interior of human skulls. The complexity of sutures in prehistoric skulls could be an indication of persistent increase in the volume of the cortex in these individuals due to proliferation of dendrites and axon terminals through the exercise of the intellect.

Page 324 Homo floresiensis
If, however, it were true that Homo floresiensis had descended from Homo erectus with dwarfing of the stature and loss of the fontanelles causing even greater reduction of cranial capacity, then this would indicate a direction of change, with evidence that Man is evolving into a higher ape.

The information available shows that LB1 had a stature, body weight and adult brain size similar to that of a chimpanzee. My calculations indicate that the neonate brain weight could also have been the same as the average chimpanzee. The features of the skull and postcranium, however, are clearly of Homo type. In my opinion, an ape-level growth pattern in the cranium combined with Homo features indicates that Homo floresiensis belongs to the Homo africanus / Homo habilis taxonomic group, of which it is in many ways an archaic form. I believe that once the secondarily altricial condition had evolved, as it had done in Homo erectus, it would not revert back. I see Homo floresiensis as representing an early branch of the Homo line which never had a 'fontanelle boost' to their cranial capacity. In the absence of contact with other groups, who were connected to the mainstream of human evolution via gene flow, and which had evolved this trait, the genetic isolation of Homo floresiensis meant that they remained unchanged in this respect.

Page 339 Model for the evolution of human intelligence
Blumenberg uses this to calculate that A. africanus had a cortex of 242 ml, H. habilis of 366 ml and Early H. erectus of 540 ml. (Blumenberg 1983, Table 3, page 591). This is extremely interesting since you will recall from page 42 that Blinkov gives the volume of the cortex for modern Man as varying between 230 and 561 ml. Thus A. africanus or Homo africanus would fall just within the range of modern Man, Homo habilis would be doing quite well and early Homo erectus would be quite proud of his/her intellect.

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Catalogue Information

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