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According to researchers from York Universitysocial communication played a decisive role in the evolution of the shape of the human face. Because humans, both short-faced and large-brained, look so different from our closest relatives, the researchers concluded that Homo sapiens most likely developed communication and nonverbal gestures to survive.
"We can now use our faces to signal more than 20 different categories of emotions via contraction or relaxation of the muscles," said Paul O'Higgins, professor of anatomy at the Hull york School of Medicine and the Department of Archeology at the University of York. "It is unlikely that our early human ancestors had the same facial dexterity as the general shape of the face and the positions of the muscles were different."
The human face must be considered as the result of biomechanical, physiological and social influences, said the research team in its study published April 15 in Nature Ecology and Evolution. Climate and food have also contributed to the formation of the human face, but the need for nonverbal communication has helped shape our modern forehead – smooth and capable of a wide range of movements. And human faces have become thinner, allowing us to express subtle emotions like sympathy and gratitude.
In addition, human faces are still evolving. Over the last 100,000 years, our face has become smaller as we develop our cooking skills, helping us to process food more efficiently and to chew less. This shift marks our transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers and city dwellers.
Hominins Skulls Over the Past 4.4 Million Years, Image Credit: Rodrigo Lacruz
"We know that other factors such as food, respiratory physiology and climate have helped shape the modern human face, but interpreting its evolution solely in terms of these factors would be overly simplistic," he said. said Professor O'Higgins. He continued: "Modern, softer regimes and industrialized societies can mean that the human face continues to decline. There are, however, limits to what the human face can change, for example, breathing requires a sufficiently large nasal cavity. "
O'Higgins concludes: "However, within these limits, the evolution of the human face is likely to continue as long as our species survives, migrates and encounters new environmental, social and cultural conditions."
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By Olivia Harvey, Earth.com Editor
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