Brain Size Expansion
The emergence of Archaic Homo sapiens is sometimes used as an example of punctuated equilibrium. This occurs when a species undergoes significant biological evolution within a relatively short period. Subsequently, the species undergoes very little change for long periods until the next punctuation. The brain size of Archaic Homo sapiens expanded significantly from 900 cubic centimeters in erectus to 1300 cubic centimeters. Since the emergence of archaics, brain size has remained stable up until the present.
Read more about this topic: Archaic Homo Sapiens
Famous quotes containing the words brain, size and/or expansion:
“I don’t know but a book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf—at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel—you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety—& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Beauty depends on size as well as symmetry. No very small animal can be beautiful, for looking at it takes so small a portion of time that the impression of it will be confused. Nor can any very large one, for a whole view of it cannot be had at once, and so there will be no unity and completeness.”
—Aristotle (384 B.C.–322 B.C.)
“Artistic genius is an expansion of monkey imitativeness.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)