What parts of the brain are involved in such abstractions? I already hinted (about language) that the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) may have played a pivotal role, but let’s take a closer look. In lower mammals the IPL isn’t very large, but it becomes more conspicuous in primates. Even within primates it is disproportionately large in the great apes, reaching a climax in humans. Finally, only in humans do we see a major portion of this lobule splitting further into two, the angular gyrus and the supramarginal gyrus, suggesting that something important was going on in this region of the brain
...more