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TIL The brains of modern humans are around 13% smaller than those of Homo sapiens who lived 100,000 years ago (piefed.social)
submitted 1 week ago by to c/til@lemmy.ca
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[–] [S] 7 points 6 days ago (1 child)

It’s coincidental with the human adoption of farming.

So far it looks like no hypothesis holds water. For example this one about farming is talking about a timeframe of 10.000 years. The shrinkage started 100.000. So there is a 90.000 years gap, that is left unexplained

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  • [–] 2 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    via https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.742639

    brain size has remained steady in H. sapiens until a rapid and dramatic change point only 3,000 years ago

    and if we estimate farming was 10,000 years ago, we can't rule out one influenced the other.

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Yes, DeSilva published the 2021 paper you linked. In 2022 he got criticism from Villmoare and Grabowski (see: Did the transition to complex societies in the Holocene drive a reduction in brain size? A reassessment of the DeSilva et al. (2021) hypothesis). Then in 2023 DeSilva revised his argument in (link above, in the description), extending the date back, still not giving anwers about the shrinkage observed since 100.000 years ago.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Then in 2023 DeSilva revised his argument in (link above, in the description), extending the date back, still not giving anwers about the shrinkage observed since 100.000 years ago.

    yeah, from the last 3,000 to within the last 10,000 years, with the sharp decline ~5,000 years ago... which does line up with widespread adoption of agriculture still.

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 6 days ago (1 child)

    Of course you can choose to believe what you want.

    The point I was trying to make is that there is no scientific consensus on the topic about how global the decline was, when it began and why it happened - as well as if it is related to the formation of complex societies, farming, language, dietary changes, temperature, or body size.

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