ANTH 2231 Lecture Notes - Encephalization
Document Summary
An organism"s body produces only a finite amount of energy to run all various components (11 systems) Maintaining an organ/system requires energy from the body"s reserves and so it must be worth it in terms of some adaptive advantage it provides. System has to be worth the energy to be maintain in organism. The brain and the gut are both metabolically expensive organs. To increase the size of either one would require some cost to other organs. Therefore, in order to evolve a larger brain either the digestive system (or other organs) will suffer or. Hominins needed to start relying more heavily on a higher quality diet: meat (protein: meat is more efficient energy in carbohydrates, meat allows us to ahev a bigger brain! Meat eating explains major jump in encephalization around 2 mya with h. erectus. Increase in meat eating followed invention of fire and cooking. Cooked food digests more efficiently and increases energy returns.
