ANT E101 Chapter Notes - Chapter 6: Endocast, Gyrification, Encephalization
Document Summary
More varied diet, which also included use of aquatic resources. Sites occupied for longer periods and extensively modified. Evidence of more permanent shelters (eg mammoth bone shelters) Innovative: new, more elaborate technologies, projectile weapons, clothing, shelters, and other innovations in material culture. Cognitive: personal adornment and symbolic behavior, art and music, ritual. Social: larger social networks, exchange networks, buffered risk of starvation. Endocranial casts do: general representation of brain size and shape. Charles darwin - talked about relative brain size. Encephalization: the proportional size of the brain relative to body size. Human brains are exceptionally large for a primate of our body size. Strong increase in brain size during hominin evolution. Humans do not have the largest brains in comparison with extant or fossil species. Gyrification index: the degree of folding of the cortex. Ratio of total cortical surface to outer cortical surface. A way to fit more cortex into the skull.
