Research Center for Sectional and Imaging Anatomy, Shandong University School of Medicine, Jinan, Shandong, China.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2014 May;154(1):94-103. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22476. Epub 2014 Jan 28.
Morphological observation and measurements of endocasts have played a vital role in research on the evolution of the human brain. However, endocasts have never been used to investigate how the human brain has evolved since the Neolithic period. We investigated the evolution of the human brain during the Holocene by comparing virtual endocasts from Beiqian site (a Neolithic Chinese site) and a sample of Chinese modern-day humans. Standardized measurements and indices were taken to provide quantification of the overall endocast shape, including the length, breadth, height, frontal breadth, and the ratio of frontal breadth to breadth, as well as the cranial capacity. We found that the height of the endocasts and cranial capacity have decreased between our two samples, whereas the frontal breadth and sexual dimorphism have increased. We argue that these changes can be caused by random genetic mutation and epigenetic change in response to changes in the environment.
颅腔模型的形态学观察和测量在人类大脑进化的研究中发挥了至关重要的作用。然而，颅腔模型从未被用于研究自新石器时代以来人类大脑的进化。我们通过比较来自北前遗址（中国新石器时代遗址）的虚拟颅腔模型和中国现代人类的样本，研究了全新世时期人类大脑的进化。我们采用了标准化的测量和指数，以提供整体颅腔模型形状的量化，包括长度、宽度、高度、额宽和额宽与宽度的比例，以及颅腔容量。我们发现，在我们的两个样本之间，颅腔模型的高度和颅腔容量都有所下降，而额宽和性别二态性增加。我们认为，这些变化可能是由随机基因突变和环境变化引起的表观遗传变化造成的。
