Skull scans reveal evolutionary secrets of fossil brains

Australopithecus afarensis ('Lucy') had ape-like brain organization, but prolonged brain growth like humans.


A new study published in Science Advances used CT-scanning technology to view three-million-year old brain imprints inside fossil skulls of the species Australopithecus afarensis (famous for “Lucy” and “Selam” from Ethiopia’s Afar region) to shed new light on the evolution of brain organization and growth. The research reveals that while Lucy’s species had an ape-like brain structure, the brain took longer to reach adult size, suggesting that infants may have had a longer dependence on caregivers, a human-like trait.



Lucy’s species inhabited eastern Africa more than three million years ago–“Lucy” herself is estimated to be 3.2 million years old–and occupies a key position in the hominin family tree, as it is widely accepted to be ancestral to all later hominins, including the lineage leading to modern humans.

“Lucy and her kin provide important evidence about early hominin behavior–they walked upright, had brains that were around 20 percent larger than those of chimpanzees, and may have used sharp stone tools,” explains coauthor Zeresenay Alemseged (University of Chicago), who directs the Dikika field project in Ethiopia and is an International Research Affiliate with the Institute of Human Origins.


The CT scans resulted in high-resolution digital “endocasts” of the interior of the skulls, where the anatomical structure of the brains could be visualized and analyzed. Based on these endocasts, the researchers could measure brain volume and infer key aspects of cerebral organization from impressions of the brain’s structure.

A key difference between apes and humans involves the organization of the brain’s parietal lobe–important in the integration and processing of sensory information–and occipital lobe in the visual center at the rear of the brain. The exceptionally preserved endocast of “Selam,” a skull and associated skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis infant found at Dikika in 2000, has an unambiguous impression of the lunate sulcus–a fissure in the occipital lobe marking the boundary of the visual area that is more prominent and located more forward in apes than in humans–in an ape-like position. The scan of the endocranial imprint of an adult A. afarensis fossil from Hadar (A.L. 162-28) reveals a previously undetected impression of the lunate sulcus, which is also in an ape-like position.


“A highlight of our work is how cutting-edge technology can clear up long-standing debates about these three million-year-old fossils,” notes coauthor Kimbel. “Our ability to ‘peer’ into the hidden details of bone and tooth structure with CT scans has truly revolutionized the science of our origins.”




“The combination of apelike brain structure and humanlike protracted brain growth in Lucy’s species was unexpected,” says Kimbel. “That finding supports the idea that human brain evolution was very much a piecemeal affair, with extended brain growth appearing before the origin of our own genus, Homo.”



Brain imprints in fossil skulls of the species Australopithecus afarensis (famous for “Lucy” and the “Dikika child” from Ethiopia pictured here) shed new light on the evolution of brain growth and organization. The exceptionally preserved endocranial imprint of the Dikika child reveals an ape-like brain organization, and no features derived towards humans. Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA Leipzig.


Article Source: ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY news release



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