Human Fossil Record Volume 3 Brain Endocasts, the - The Paleoneurological Evidence

by Ralph L. Holloway, Douglas C. Broadfield, Michael S. Yuan

The Human Fossil Record, Volume 3, Brain Endocasts: Paleoneurological Evidence presents the paleoneurological evidence for human evolution through a series of easily accessible and coherent descriptions accompanied by original photographs. Each entry provides essential information related to the location, dating, association, and morphology of the endocast. This book is invaluable for its inclusion of an overview of the methodology and modern techniques available for studying brain endocasts, as well as a concise summary on the significance of the evidence to our understanding of human evolution and behavior.

319 pages, ebook

First published May 14, 2004

About the author

Ralph Leslie Holloway Jr. was a physical anthropologist at Columbia University and research associate with the American Museum of Natural History. Since obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964, Holloway served as a professor of anthropology at Columbia. Holloway's interests were in craniology, producing endocasts, primate behavior, biology of gender, sexual dimorphism in the corpus callosum, and other topics.
Holloway's work on the Taung Child was one of the first to suggest brain reorganization occurring before the increase of brain size in hominids. His claim that the lunate sulcus, a sulcus which marks the boundary of the occipital lobe, was in a posterior position to that of apes suggests that the reduction of the occipital lobe was accompanied by enlargements of parts of the brain associated with higher cognitive function.