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Science

Thick Skull a Survival Trait 58

Posted by michael from the so-now-you-know dept.
Waffle Iron writes "This article at cnn.com reports: 'Scientists say the bulky craniums of the human ancestor, homo erectus, may have helped the species survive some aggressive mating rituals. After studying fossils in a region called Dragon Bone Hill in China, anthropologist Russell Ciochon of the University of Iowa concluded males of the species were clubbing one another over the head, probably to win females.' However, the geekier cavemen may have won out at the end. The article goes on to say: '...evolution eventually favored a lighter skull to accommodate a heavier and larger brain'."
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Thick Skull a Survival Trait More

Thick Skull a Survival Trait

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Friday February 13, 2004 @01:58PM (#8272117)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • See, it's not the thinness of the skull that makes it tougher for wussy little geeks to crush beer cans against their heads.

      It's more the fact that they're weaklings with a low pain tolerance. In short, they're complete nancies.

      (OK, back to reading the JBoss documentation...)

  • Damn (Score:3, Funny)

    by BoomerSooner ( 308737 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @02:01PM (#8272154) Homepage Journal
    I thought that was a picture of my dead grandfather for a minute. I guess all italians look like monkey's as they get older!

  • Article in The Observer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FePe ( 720693 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @02:11PM (#8272259)
    Compare the article with this article [guardian.co.uk], "Big heads really are smarter".

    It seems like the smartest people in the world has a large head and wears glasses.

    • It seems like the smartest people in the world has a large head and wears glasses.

      Actually, some of us prefer contacts.

      • I use contact lenses myself, but wear glasses occasionally. My idea was just that smart people (including geeks) tend to have a reduced sight, and some scientific studies has in fact concluded that the majority of people with a reduced sight are intellectually above average.
        • My high school biology teacher had an interesting theory on why poor eye sight was not eliminated by evolution: While the cavemen with the good eyes went out hunting, the poor-sighted cavegeeks stayed home - with the cavewomen!

          Perhaps with the advance of civilization and invention of the high school jock, only the smarter bespectacled individuals were able to later land well-paying jobs and opportunities to procreate.

          • My high school biology teacher had an interesting theory on why poor eye sight was not eliminated by evolution: While the cavemen with the good eyes went out hunting, the poor-sighted cavegeeks stayed home - with the cavewomen!

            Yeah, you'd need poor eyesight to get aroused when you think about how those cavewomen looked - beer wasn't invented yet.

    • So in 800,000 or so more years, will humanity have evolved to look like this [gocollect.com]?

  • Coworkers (Score:5, Funny)

    by schnits0r ( 633893 ) <nathannd@saskte l . n et> on Friday February 13, 2004 @02:15PM (#8272300) Homepage Journal
    So that means my coworkers have a higher survival rate?

    Someone had to say it, It might as well have been me.

  • Simpsons pot game (Score:5, Funny)

    by Bowling Moses ( 591924 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @02:31PM (#8272513) Journal
    My roommate and I have thrown several parties for friends of ours who finally got their PhD's. There's more concentrated drunken nerdliness at these things than probably is legal, and at several of them the pot game (from the Simpsons) happens. Two grad students or newly-minted PhD's grab pots from our kitchen and bash heads. So far only one real injury: a cracked but not broken nose (the pots escape undamaged). So if the thicker skull of H. erectus was due to ritualized violence does that mean that the street preacher who came to campus last month was right when he called us a bunch of degenerates?

    • Re:Simpsons pot game (Score:4, Funny)

      by TomorrowPlusX ( 571956 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @03:29PM (#8273262)
      So if the thicker skull of H. erectus was due to ritualized violence does that mean that the street preacher who came to campus last month was right when he called us a bunch of degenerates?

      Yes, but that would require him to accept... gasp... evolution.

      The dirtiest word of all!

    • It's just an example of adaptation overcoming natural evolution.

      Now, if there was a simple way to make working flight wings out of household appliances, then we'd have a stew going.

  • *Tnok* *Squee!* (Score:5, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @02:31PM (#8272521) Homepage Journal
    "Scientists say the bulky craniums of the human ancestor, homo erectus, may have helped the species survive some aggressive mating ritual"

    So we Slashdotters all have thin skulls because... oh man, I've been burned by Darwin!

    • Re:*Tnok* *Squee!* (Score:4, Interesting)

      by metlin ( 258108 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @03:34PM (#8273317) Journal
      I know this is intended to be funny, but it makes me wonder.

      Are we at a state where social skills are more important than intellectual skills? Often, the more intelligent ones are the ones with really poor social skills.

      Just think about it - the Slashdot crowd is largely the cream (or atleast a significant part) of the intellectual populace.

      And if this is the case, the *intelligent* ones are actually being beaten by the less capable ones. The more intellectual ones are the ones who are single.

      And these are the ones who are capable of changing the world, who are capable of doing radical things, who can think outside the box. However, these very people are socially so inept.

      Does this not fly in the face of Darwinism? Just wondering, as someone who had a bad breakup the day before Valentine's day :)
      • "Just think about it - the Slashdot crowd is largely the cream (or atleast a significant part) of the intellectual populace."

        Clearly, you haven't really thought about it...

        A.

      • Re:*Tnok* *Squee!* (Score:3, Interesting)

        by NanoGator ( 522640 )
        "Are we at a state where social skills are more important than intellectual skills? Often, the more intelligent ones are the ones with really poor social skills."

        This may be true at the age of 20, but how about 40? I had a terrible time in high school, but now I'm in my mid-20's, and I'm not having anywhere near the problems with women that I used to. I think when women reach a certain phase in their lives, it's less about looks and more about "Can I stand this guy?"

        "And if this is the case, the *int

        • I really think this situation only really occurs in the younger age brackets.

          Yes, among those who do the bulk of the reproduction. That's when the 'selection' occurs.

          A 30 year old is less likely to become pregnant 'accidentally' than a 20 year old.

          A 30 year old is less likely to become pregnant at all than a 20 year old.

          When you think about it, all those stupid, impulsive kids are outbreeding us smart folks who take precautions and have (maybe) one child.

          • "When you think about it, all those stupid, impulsive kids are outbreeding us smart folks who take precautions and have (maybe) one child."

            Uh, that's always been the case. The Every Sperm is Sacred skit from "Monty Python: The Meaning of Life" isn't far off. My dad was the last of seventeen children, and most of his brothers and sisters aren't exactly doing any better than their parents. He didn't have to help raise more family members and was therefore able to go off to college, discontinuing the cyc
        • Geeks being frowned upon seems to be a white thing - I have had long conversations with my friend who came from Taiwan as to why people in America find physical ability more important than intellectual activity. And when I lived in the ghetto, my "geekiness" was not as much of a problem as when I moved into suburbia.
          Oddly enough, most of the white woman who were interested in me were already married - as you can guess, my wife is not white.
        • I think when women reach a certain phase in their lives, it's less about looks and more about "Can I stand this guy?"

          Seems to happen at about 25 - 30 years old, as the "all my friends are married and I'm not" crisis (followed soon after by the "all my friends have children and I don't" crisis that hits around 30 - 35).

      • Intellectual skills and social skills are mostly irrelevant in an evolutionary context, since they are usually environmental traits, not inherited ones. A lot of smart people have really dumb kids etc.
      • "the Slashdot crowd is largely the cream (or atleast a significant part) of the intellectual populace."

        And here was I thinking that the Slashdot crowd was largely the "hot grits" of the intellectual populace.

      • Re:*Tnok* *Squee!* (Score:2, Insightful)

        by fbform ( 723771 )
        And these are the ones who are capable of changing the world, who are capable of doing radical things, who can think outside the box. However, these very people are socially so inept

        I contemplated your post for a day before deciding to respond. I've had this idea for a while now that individual humans are not the functional unit anymore. It's become society vs society. As long as the individual is contributing to society in some way, he/she is accepted. Geeks and Nerds contribute directly through innovat
  • Would there be enough of this going on to account for evolutionary development of thick skulls?<BR><BR>
    Does this sound like an awful lot of beating going on to anyone else?
  • "males of the species were clubbing one another over the head, probably to win females... evidence from dozens of fossils with healed skull fractures: presumably from the hard-heads who got the girls."

    Right :D. No change there then.

    "They experimented with human cadavers to establish how much force it would take to break bones."

    This research sounds like fun. Sick, but fun.

  • Ob Simpsons (Score:3, Funny)

    by xleeko ( 551231 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @03:17PM (#8273093)
    We know the true name of this condition ...

    Dr Hibbert: You have an absolutely unique genetic condition known as "Homer
    Simpson syndrome".
    Homer: [moaning] Oh, why me?

    Dr Hibbert: Why, I could wallop you all day with this surgical two-by-four
    without ever knocking you down.

    --From "The Homer They Fall"
  • Geeks are excellent tool makers/tool users. Bigger brain = better weapons. Spear wins out over club.
    • However, the geekier cavemen may have won out at the end. The article goes on to say: '...evolution eventually favored a lighter skull to accommodate a heavier and larger brain'."

      I disagree with the premise that those homo erecti with larger brains were necessarily geeks. Being smart doesn't make one a geek and being a geek doesn't make one smart. Some geeks a smart, some are dumb.

      Some smart people are cool and stylish and date lots of girls and hate computers and Star Trek and LOTR.

  • Anyone else think of Johnny Hart's BC cartoon? Except I think it was the cavewomen that got bonked...apparently they wouldn't go with the cavemen otherwise.

  • Skull features (Score:5, Informative)

    by pajamacore ( 613970 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @03:57PM (#8273643)

    The article fails to go into depth concerning any of Homo erectus' actual skull features which might have lessened trauma in a conflict.

    H. erectus skullcaps are pachyostic, meaning to possess an increase in size, density, or mineral content. There is a thickening along the midline of the skull that resembles a boat's keel. Thusly, it is referred to as "sagittal keeling". Also, there is a projecting brow ridge with which most people are familiar and bony thickenings on the sides and rear of the cranium.

    If a heavy blow were to hit a modern human on the top of his or her head, the bone would cave in. Hematoma, coma, and death are likely results of this. The thicker bone of erectoids is less likely to fracture on impact.

    Anyone who's been in a fight though, will tell you that you're probably going to deliver blows at eye-level. The thick ring of bone starting above the eye sockets and continuing around the skull help protect against trauma to the head. For one, your eye sockets are protected because of the brow ridge. Secondly, you have thick bones above your temples and ears to protect the sinuses that conduct blood into the internal jugular vein. The ridge on the rear of the skull protects sinuses carrying blood to the cerebullum and occipital lobe of the brain.

    The roofs of H. erectus eye sockets are flat and horizontal and any blow to them would be transmitted to the back of the skull, thusly protecting the bones around the eye. The H. erectus face was also tucked under brow ridges, which made it harder to fracture cheek bones and to separate the facial skeleton from the braincase.

    The jaw also thickens just behind the chin, the most common place for breaks in modern peoples. Erectoids differed from modern humans in the placement of arteries in and around the temple area. The main blood supply of the meningeal artery was moved away from this vulnerable area because the bone there was particularly thin and this movement lessened the effects of the breakage of arteries in that area.

    There are other differences, but those are the major ones covered in the work of Ciochon and Boaz.

    • You always see these action heroes in movies using head butts to knock guys out. I guess movie goers think this provides comic relief to see a guy knocked out using a fighting tactic most of us don't consider using. Then there was a film clip for real on TV news of a high-school wrestler knocking a ref out with a head butt and the stink this caused about violent anti-sportsman like conduct and what this says about values among students today.

      I perhaps too innocently asked a high-school student about the

      • Lots of martial arts teach head butts. (I doubt any of the sporty ones teach it for real, though.)

        This [selfdefensenow.com] is the result of 30 seconds with Google.

  • Y'all seem to think that it's only the males who benefit from having thick skulls.

    It benefits women too, vis--vis the headboard. There's nothing like a coital concussion to kill the romance.

  • Fight Club != mating ritual (Score:3, Funny)

    by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @05:18PM (#8274753) Homepage Journal
    So a buch of cave guys played skull bashing games. What does this have to do with mating? My guess is that while 'the guys' were off in the woods, spanking each other, chanting "thank you sir, may I have another?!", the smart, sensitive caveguys had started a band with instruments they built, wrote love songs and poetry, cried and wept, and seduced women .

    "Hm. Son like poetry. Not want go hunting with guys. Uses bow make music. Son remind me of that nerd Grog. Hey! Hm. Idea gone."

  • "the University of Iowa concluded males of the species were clubbing one another over the head, probably to win females."

    Probably over drugs of some kind - the first fermented drinks perhaps - rather than females. Coincides with first domestication of the horse, and the first "ride-by clubbings", reported by Scrotal and Bawbag in their seminal 1979 study "Neanderthals In The Hood".

  • males of the species were clubbing one another over the head, probably to win females

    This reminds me of all those old cartoon cavemen with clubs, dragging a cavewoman by the hair after he'd knocked her out with the club.

  • "Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
  • ...why some of my cow-orkers are still alive. The thick skull is necessary to survive enraged beatings by the more clueful. It's also harder for small lizards to fuck a thicker gourd.
  • The dumb thick skulled males beat each other over the head to determine who can mate. This would lead to the thickest skulled breeding the most hence having the most kids and therefore the winner.

    This did not happen as our skulls are thin.

    What really happened is that while the thick skulled ones were bashing each other brains in the thin skulled nerd was clubbing out the women and dragging them to his cave.

    Hence women with the thinnest skulls tended to get clubbed out the easiest and become the mother of

    • Fit guys get drafted and send to the front, unfit guys stay home and comfort the women.

      That merely means that in times of war in the kind of society where this pattern occurs and wars are fought at fronts instead of globally, the ones unfit to go to the front are the fittest as far as overall survival is concerned. That is, in fact, nothing new. Being fittest should in no way be seen as "being in excellent physical condition", but as "being best adapted to the circumstances at hand".

      Survival of the fit

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