Men have evolved to take a punch in the face, Our male
ancestors may have developed more robust brows, jaws, cheeks, and molars for
protection during fights over mates, food, and other resources. Parts of the
face that have become stronger are the ones that most frequently break when
modern humans fight. It rather puts on its ear our notion that prehistoric men
fought more than modern men. Here is the article.
New study suggests facial features evolved to protect our
ancestors from injury
Monday
09 June 2014
Bare-knuckle fighting helped to shape the human face which
evolution has designed to minimise the damage inflicted by a fast-moving fist,
according to a radical new theory about how violence changed the way we looked
compared to our ape-like ancestors.
The
transition in facial structure from apes to early hominins had previously been
explained largely by the need to chew on nuts and other hard foods that needed
crushing which led to a robust jaw, large molar teeth, a prominent brow and strong
cheek muscles.
However, scientists have devised another plausible explanation
based on the need for the face to be buttressed against the impact of flying
fists which had become a principal weapon in unarmed combat between competing
males.
“We suggest that many of the facial features that characterise
early hominins evolved to protect the face from injury during fighting with
fists,” said David Carrier and Michael Morgan in a study published in the
journal Biological Reviews.
The researchers analysed the facial bone structures of a number
of hominins, such as an early human ancestor known as Australopithecus, and
compared them to apes and modern man. They found that the parts of the face
that changed most were the ones most likely to be damaged in a fist fight.
They also found that these changes in facial anatomy closely
coincided with the ability of the early hominins to clench their fists and to
use them as swinging clubs in a fight – a key tactical change from the biting
and scratching preferred by fighting apes.
The stronger facial bones
of the australopiths (second and third rows) appeared at the same time that our
ancestors learned to clench their fists, before declining along with upper body
strength.
“Compared to apes like chimps and gorillas, early hominins had
very robust jaws, with large molar teeth and strong jaw muscles. They also have
very stout cheek bones and brow ridges,” said David Carrier of the University
of Utah in Salt Lake City.
“The australopiths were characterised by a suite of traits that
may have improved fighting ability, including hand proportions that allow
formation of a fist, effectively turning the delicate musculoskeletal system of
the hand into a club for striking,” Dr Carrier said.
“If indeed the evolution of our hand proportions were associated
with selection for fighting behaviour you might expect the primary target, the
face, to have undergone evolution to better protect it from injury when
punched,” he said.
With his colleague Mike Morgan, a medical doctor at Utah
University, Dr Carrier analysed the facial bones that were most likely to be
fractured in fights between modern humans and found that these were the same
bones that were most likely to have been changed during human evolution.
“When modern humans fight the face is the primary target. The
bones of the face that suffer the highest rates of fracture from fights are the
bones that show the greatest increase in robusticity during the evolution of
early bipedal apes, the australopiths,” Dr Carrier said.
“These are also the bones that show the greatest difference
between women and men in both australopiths and modern humans,” he said.
The gender differences in facial bones supports the view that
they evolved to buttress the face against flying fists given that fights
between males are more common than those between females.
“In other words, male and female faces are different because the
parts of the skull that break in fights are bigger in males,” he said.
“In both apes and humans, males are much more violent than
females and most male violence is directed at other males. Because males are
the primary target of violence, one would expect more protective buttressing in
males and that is what we find,” he added.
The large, thickly enamelled molar teeth of australopiths may
have allowed the energy of an upward blow to the jaw, for instance, to be
transferred from the lower jaw to the skull, allowing the energy to be absorbed
with the help of jaw muscles, the scientists suggested.
“What our research has been showing is that many of the
anatomical characters of great apes and our ancestors, the early hominins –
such as bipedal posture, the proportions of our hands and the shape of our
faces – do in fact improve fighting performance,” Dr Carrier said.
Patti Wood, MA, Certified Speaking Professional - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at
www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at
www.snapfirstimpressions.com. Also check out Patti's YouTube channel at
http://youtube.com/user/bodylanguageexpert.
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