Skullcast: comparison of hominin skulls

Biology teacher Andrew Douch makes comparisons between the skulls of an ancient hominin (Australopithecus afarensis) and a modern hominin (Homo sapiens).

[@andrewdouch]

No we do have a brow-ridge, Just a small one (and smaller in some people than others). And a prominent chin is a typical feature of H. sapiens.

[@marias21]

hello i am watching ur edrolo videos! Never thought i would find you here as well. You are a great teacher that makes everything interesting. Thank you :)

[@northbeachfilms]

thank you so much! this is a very helpful movie and i appreciate the fact that it was created and then posted on youtube.

[@brittanythompson7187]

Loved the video. It really helped me. Keep up the good work.

[@brittbrat1988]

This is pretty goood but I would like to make one correction to the point you made about the size of the brain case. Our brain casing is not larger simply because we are smarter. Humans being smarter is is an effect but not a cause of having larger brains. The reason why their brain case is smaller than ours is because they have larger jaw muscles than we do in order to compensate for eating tough vegetation. Those muscles took up much more space than the jaw muscles we have which allowed our brains to grow much larger.

[@gorinzio]

Australopithecus Boisei is a close cousin of Afarensis. He was a specialized chewer with very strong muscles impressions on his parietal bones. Afarensis got smaller molars... this shows that afarensis was also an occasional meat eater and he witness the using of chopping and cutting tools by this hominid. I published my study about cranial differences and analogies between us and our earlier ancestors. Nice video andrew!

[@adolfolicious]

Great job presenting I never learned about the foremen magnum properly in class (because my teacher is gorgeous) Thank you very much you helped me study

[@stefcui007]

Why has there been no appreciable difference in human skulls, either by size or shape, after humans mated with Neanderthals and Denisovans? There should be anatomical changes in the human after 50% gene sharing with anatomically different humans. Humans skeletons should demonstrate a before and after from what we looked like before interbreeding and after interbreeding. Love to hear your opinion.

[@davisjugroop3782]

Excellent presentation

[@tkoblvr6809]

So which part evolved first the teeth, the slope, the brow the brain cavity, the brain spine hole placement, or the angle of our jawline. Also is there a skull with one of those certain evolvements and not the others that kind of shows the progression. Thanks in advance

[@mockingbird961]

Hi, could you please provide some advantages between gracile and robust bones ? Thank you

[@JohnnyZenith]

Why cant these videos be much much longer.

[@JA420love]

I was watching on closed caption and it reads that the smaller shape of the modern human's jaw and teeth indicate that modern humans ate much less grain and plant matter and is an example of how our diet changed? I am not a professor but as a student, I have learned that humans cultivated wild plants with artificial selection to create grains that would then become a major part of the human diet. Prior to the cultivation of grains, wild plants that had grains were smaller and a much smaller part of the early humanoid diet. According to this modern humans have more grains in the diet not less. I have learned that the use of fire to cook foods led to the smaller jaws and teeth, as cooking foods often made them softer and easier to chew and digest.

[@tahiraparveen2949]

thx for this video, really good review for exams.

[@raiderlax5]

@SuzLa1 Energy consumption. Big brains mean larger calorie consumption which calls for more food/energy. We found the balance between our bodies and our brain capacity so that we could support our brain and body calorie needs sufficiently

[@NorthForkFisherman]

Good video. Looks like you used the Bone Clones rotational models. That sound about right? I'd suggest adding a link to the elucy site so that people can compare some of the key parts of AL 288-1 to both Pan and H. sap examples as well. I found the review of both the afarensis mandible and inominate when compared to the other two examples to be very compelling.

[@SuzLa1]

Is it true they make prehuman bodies look more human than they really were?

[@fernandoleon2321]

Great job. Thank you so much.

[@fishsticks3729]

Sorry to be that comment, and there’s a high chance that I’m wrong, but are you sure that is a homo Saipan? The brow ridge seems very pronounced, there seems to be prognathism and the nose seems a bit extended. Could it be a H. Neanderthalensis? (Im not the best at this, hence why I’m here, but the brow ridge just really seemed off) i do see the large cranium and small chin so it’s possible it’s h. Sapian too, just wanted to point out the occipital torus.

[@andrewdouch]

It's Cro-Magnon: one of the earliest Homo sapiens.

[@fishsticks3729]

@@andrewdouch thank you! Hope it didn’t seem too critical, I was just curious.

[@sidimightbe]

You picked a very archaic modern human skull, but I liked the vid

[@MrStarxxx]

Very good video. Which kind of interactive software did you use to make this video?

[@andrewdouch]

I used Promethean's ActiveInspire

[@andrewdouch]

i do believe you are right

[@NorthForkFisherman]

Actually I think that's a BoneClones Skhul 5 - archaic H. sap, and one that may show some of the characteristics of a recent cross with H. neanderthalis. Either way, it's a good presentation. BTW Andrew, the Au. afarensis reconstruction, that also BoneClones?

[@orangedac]

the powerful jaw muscles limit the size of the brain.

[@derplerp5777]

The way he says homo "sappians" really cracks me up 😂

[@raiderlax5]

@suzla1 also comagnon's had a very large robust size which would have called for a higher brain capacity to control... Just another reason for larger brainsize over modern humans

[@oglow100]

Don't homo sapiens have no brow ridge at all and their jaw bone is not very prominent at all?

[@herealittlewhile7448]

Why is that not a monkey?

[@dannyboiiiiii94]

you're amazing

[@SuzLa1]

Why have modern human brains become smaller after the Cromagnon?

[@RalphAlphaSprouts]

Makes me wonder what we might evolve into. maybe similar to the drawings of aliens. lol!

[@orpita5546]

It’s been 10 years u good homie?

[@gamesbergin]

song name?

[@andrewdouch]

"Headache"

[@spindlegrinder]

Sorry that's a Neanderthal skull from Qafzeh

[@allinone77227]

Upsc

[@jesussavedrjm6818]

you believe that the skull on the left is a pre-human and that we are related to it. my question is how do you know that? similar structure? Volkswagen Beetle and a Volkswagen Buggy look similar but they are different but they have the same maker. do you find DNA? I think we both can agree neither one is an alien so it stands to reason that their bodies and the code that dictates the function would be similar to two living creatures that exist in the same world. similarity does not mean one came from the other. it just means that they live on the same planet.

[@andrewdouch]

I agree that similarity in design indicates a common origin. I don't think anyone would disagree with that, actually. But whether you are right or wrong about the existence of a "maker" (right IMHO, BTW), car relatedness is not really a suitable analogy for biological relatedness, because unlike animals, cars do not reproduce (how cool would it be if they did though?!). Heritability of genetic information is one of the cornerstones of evolutionary theory. In cars there is no heritability of information at all - so all the analogy does is serve to remind us that if two things have a fundamentally similar structure, they likely have a common origin. Even the most ardent atheist will agree with you on that point! In answer to your other question, it's not just similarity in structure that palaeontologists use to place hominin species in an evolutionary sequence, but also the age of the fossils and their geographical distribution. (That said there are still many gaps in our knowledge, and much disagreement even between evolutionary biologists, about which species are ancestral to which).

[@jesussavedrjm6818]

Andrew Douch thank you for your polite response, for the conclusion to be made based on what we have and what we dont have seems a bit presumptuous. we have never see a change in kind. the type of change like dog and horse. also, for some of the so called pre man,making the guess to put fur and muscle structure is only a guess yet it tought as truth.

[@northbeachfilms]

@tiktik77 probably because we ARE neanderthals and don't want to admit it. haha. i love the neanderthals.

[@yvettefoto]

There's a really good chance that Australopithecus isn't one of our ancestors at all.