john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Quote: Darwin on the eyebrows

Wed, 2008-09-10 22:16 -- John Hawks

Darwin, in The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals, p. 222-223, referring to the muscles involved in furrowing the brow during a frown:

It is not surprising that the corrugators should have become much more developed in man than in the anthropoid apes; for they are brought into incessant action by him under various circumstances, and will have been strengthened and modified by the inherited effects of use.... When the eyes are closed as quickly and as forcibly as possible, to save them from being injured by a blow, the corrugators contract. With savages or other men whose heads are uncovered, the eyebrows are continually lowered and contracted to serve as a shade against a too strong light; and this is effected partly by the corrugators. This movement would have been more especially serviceable to man, as soon as his early progenitors held their heads erect.

Interesting because (a) it's one of his clearer references to use inheritance; (b) it's a clear statement of comparative evolutionary anatomy applied to behavior, and (c) it presaged Grover Krantz by 100 years.

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.