Abstract
MAN'S SKULL IN THE LIGHT OF EVOLUTION.—The human skull is a product of evolutionary change, and this could not be more clearly shown than by tracing in a few clear-cut stages the history of the elements of which it is composed. Ten such stages are discussed by Dr. W. K. Gregory (Internal. Jour. Ortho-dontia, Oral Surgery, and Radiography, vol. 14, 1928). He shows how the gradual development of these stages is associated with improvements in the brain, enlargements of parts containing the sense organs, and modifications of the jaws and teeth, all accompanying or accompanied by changes in habits. Each and every one of the twenty-eight bones in the human skull is derived from bones present in the skull of certain Devonian air-breathing fishes. To the amphibians man owes the beginnings of his ear-drum, and the changes associated with it; to the first mammal-like reptiles his temporal fossa, zygomatic arch, and the dominance of the superior maxilla; to the higher mammal-like reptiles, the dominance of the dentary bone of the lower jaw, as well as the differentiation of his teeth into incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. The early mammals simplified the masticatory apparatus; the early primates increased the dominance of the eyes; the early anthropoids made the first serious success in shortening and deepening the face and pointed the way to an enlarged brain and cranium—on their account men walk the earth to-day with long faces and swelled heads. It is an interesting story made clearer by Dr. Gregory's series of text-figures.
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Research Items. Nature 122, 109–111 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122109a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122109a0
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