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In Neuroscience and Cognition
Seminar · Evolution
Cognition plus longevity equals culture: A new framework for understanding human brain evolution
Suzana Herculano-Houzel · Vanderbilt University
Fri, Dec 4, 2020 · 06:00 UTC
Narratives of human evolution have focused on cortical expansion and increases in brain size relative to body size, but considered that changes in life history, such as in age at sexual maturity and thus the extent of childhood and maternal dependence, or maximal longevity, are evolved features that appeared as consequences of selection for increased brain size, or increased cognitive abilities that decrease mortality rates, or due to selection for grandmotherly contribution to feeding the young. Here I build on my recent finding that slower life histories universally accompany increased numbe