Supraorbital Ridge - Purpose

Purpose

See also: Human skeletal changes due to bipedalism

The brow ridge functions to reinforce the weaker bones of the face in much the same way that the chin of modern humans reinforces their comparatively thin mandibles. This was necessary in pongids and early hominids because of the tremendous strain put on the cranium by their powerful chewing apparatuses, which is best demonstrated by any of the members of the genus Paranthropus. The brow ridge was one of the last traits to be lost in the path to modern humans, and only disappeared with the development of the modern pronounced frontal lobe. This is one of the most salient differences between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis.

Read more about this topic:  Supraorbital Ridge

Famous quotes containing the word purpose:

    “And is the price for your acceptance for me to conform? To be as you would want me to be?... You must accept me as I am. Do not question.... If my behavior seems different perhaps it is because it serves a higher purpose than to find acceptance in this dull and useless world.”
    —Pat Fielder, and Paul Landres. Dracula (Francis Lederer)

    “If God bestowed immortality on every man then when he made him, and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving grace, what did his Lordship think that God gave any man immortality with purpose only to make him capable of immortal torments? It is a hard saying, and I think cannot piously be believed. I am sure it can never be proved by the canonical Scripture.”
    —Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)

    “The purpose of punishment is to improve those who do the punishing—that is the final recourse of those who support punishment.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)