In order to make faster progress, evolution needed to devise a way for the brain to develop new behaviors without waiting for genetic change to reconfigure the cerebellum. This was the neocortex. Meaning “new rind,” it emerged some 200 million years ago in a novel class of animals: mammals.[48] In these early mammals, which were rodent-like creatures, the neocortex was the size of a postage stamp and just as thin; it wrapped itself around their walnut-size brains.[49] But it was organized in a more flexible way than the cerebellum. Rather than being a collection of disparate modules
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