Gentler Personalities Fueled Evolutionary Link to Modern Humanity

Human Evolution by David Gifford
Human Evolution by David Gifford

Anthropologists tell us that although modern humans developed about 200,000 years ago, the advancement to modern societal characteristics occurred only 50,000 years ago.

This is when humans began making art and creating advanced tools.

A new study finds that the change in cultural activities was associated with a change in human anatomy as skulls changed in ways that indicate a lowering of testosterone levels.

By  Senior News Editor
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 4, 2014




What they can’t tell from the bones is whether these humans had less testosterone in circulation, or fewer receptors for the hormone.



“If we’re seeing a process that leads to these changes in other animals, it might help explain who we are and how we got to be this way,” said Hare, who also studies differences between our closest ape relatives — aggressive chimpanzees and mellow, free-loving bonobos.

“Those two apes develop differently,” Hare said, “and they respond to social stress differently.”




“It’s very hard to find a brow-ridge in a bonobo,” Hare said.

Cieri compared the brow ridge, facial shape, and interior volume of 13 modern human skulls older than 80,000 years, 41 skulls from 10,000 to 38,000 years ago, and a global sample of 1,367 twentieth century skulls from 30 different ethnic populations.




Was this driven by a brain mutation, cooked foods, the advent of language, or just population density?


“If prehistoric people began living closer together and passing down new technologies, they’d have to be tolerant of each other,” Cieri said.


Source: Duke University

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