Anthropology
Open Access

Peter M Elias

Publications

• Perspective
  Did Hairlessness Stimulate an Increase in Hominin Brain Size? Insights from the Cutaneous Neurosensory Interface and Comparative Vertebrate Morphology
  Author(s): Mitsuhiro Denda, Gopinathan K Menon and Peter M EliasMitsuhiro Denda, Gopinathan K Menon and Peter M Elias
  
  The basis for the late stages of brain growth in our immediate human ancestors is unknown, but generally attributed to the development of language associated with increasingly complex social settings. We present arguments for an additional or alternative potential contributor to endocranial expansion. As ancestral humans emerged from tropical forests into open savannahs, loss of their body hair facilitated the dissipation of body heat. But their newly-exposed cutaneous surfaces would have been bombarded by exogenous stimuli that could have stimulated an increase in brain size required to centrally process a plethora of new sensory information arriving from the periphery. Two lines of evidence support this hypothesis. First, the common embryologic origin of epidermis and central nervous system (CNS) from the primitive neuroectoderm, endowed the skin with a broad suite of neuro mechanis.. View More»
  DOI: 10.4172/2332-0915.1000199

  Abstract PDF

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