Lives of the Brain

Last month (October 2009), Science magazine devoted an entire extraordinary issue to what may be our oldest ancestor: Ardipithecus ramidus. Ardipithecus ramidus, with its small cranial capacity and mix of primitive and derived traits, sits about where it should on the hominid family tree, in both time and space. The same cannot be said for the fossil known as the "Hobbit" (LB1), representing a putative new species, Homo floresiensis. Separated by almost 4 million years and thousands of miles, what do these species tell us about human brain evolution? Read More