A face for fighting?

Cavemen were not the type to seek counseling. They didn’t call the cave police. They simply lashed out, with their fists. (“Hey, that’s my cave-painting brush!” POW! “Get your own pet mammoth!” SMACK!) Which a new study of pre-modern humans suggests is why the male jaw is bulkier than the female jaw, and strongest in all the right places to take a punch.

It also appears the male hand evolved to become a club-like instrument, adding to the evidence that fighting had more to do with our development than we’d like to admit. Only later, as Kuhn’s depiction of a brutish clown suggests, did we learn to defuse with humor.

—Tim Gihring, editor

June 12, 2014

Source: Daily Telegraph, June 9, 2014