Evolution of the human brain
The human brain has developed and evolved to help the human species survive and thrive in there habitat. Since we were nomad, we moved alot and had to survive through rough climats of all sorts, this forced our brain to develope so we would know and recognize how to survive in all of the climat and habitat changes. For example it helped us know what was edible and what was not, how to make shelter and were to build it, etc.
When did hominid brains start evolving? Hominid brains evolved from weighting 400g, 3 to 4 million years ago to a weight of 1400g (today). Around 2 to 3 million years ago our brains growth peeked up at an incredible rate, this was the age of homo habilis, the handy man. |  |
Why did our brain growth peek?
Homo habilis was the first hominid to create tools then he was followed by homo erectus who was the first to control fire. these inventions and tools created a chain reaction and caused multiple other inventions to appear. This caused our brain growth to peek. The more we learned, the more questions appeared and the more answers we got the more knowledge we gained.
Does brain size matter?
Brain size does not particularly matter, its how the brain is made that matters. The neanderthals, for instance had larger brains than us but we still outsmarted them. There occipital lobe used for visual processing is larger than ours. The difference is that we had a bigger temporal and parital lobe then them. these parts of the brain are the ones that control our knowledge of numbers, memory, meaning of numbers, etc.
