Early hominid brain evolution: a new look at old endocasts

Early hominid brain morphology is reassessed from endocasts of Australopith ecus africanus and three species of Paranthropus, and new endocast reconstr uctions and cranial capacities are reported for four key specimens from the Paranthropus clade. The brain morphology of Australopithecus africanus app ears more human like than that of Paranthropus in terms of overall frontal and temporal lobe shape. These new data do not support the proposal that in creased encephalization is a shared feature between Paranthropus and early Homo. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that Australopithecus africanus could have been ancestral to Homo, and have implications for ass essing the tempo and mode of early hominid neurological and cognitive evolu tion. (C) 2000 Academic Press.