Scientists have discovered that three million years ago, the ancient ape of Afa South had a brain similar to that of an ape.

In !-- a recent study published in Science Advances, a team led by Paleoanthrenics Philipp Gunz and Simon Neubauer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany found that the afarensis southern ape belonging to Lucy, a specimen of an ancient ape, had a brain similar to that of an ape.
, however, the slow brain development is like that of humans, and baby apes may need long-term care.
more than 3 million years ago, the Afnan ape lived in East Africa and played an important role in the paleo-human genealogy because it was widely believed to be the ancestor of all later paleo-humans, including the human lineage.
lucy and her colleagues provide important evidence of early paleoanthren human behavior," explained Zeresenay Alemseged, a communications author from the University of Chicago.
they walked upright, 20 percent larger than chimpanzees, and may have used sharp stone tools.
" Alemseged is in charge of the Dikika field project in Ethiopia.
he discovered the bones of southern ancient ape children in 2000.
: "Our new results show how their brains develop and how they are organized.
" To study the brain growth and tissue structure of the ancient ape in the south of Afa, researchers scanned the skull fossils of the ancient ape children found in Dikika using synchronous micro-fault scanning technology at the European Synchrron Radiation Laboratory (ESRF, Glenoble, France).
with the help of this latest technology, researchers were able to reveal the age of death with weeks of precision.
, the researchers scanned seven other well-preserved skull fossils in Dikika and Hadar, Ethiopia, using high-resolution conventional fault scanning techniques.
After years of painstaking fossil reconstruction and dental growth line counting, researchers restored the brain imprints of ancient ape children found in Dikika, including precise age of death, re-estimation of the cranial contents, and intracranial features of previously undiscovered fossils of famous southern apes.
data provide new revelations on two controversial questions: Is there evidence that the Afagu ape has a human-like brain recombination? Are the brain growth patterns of Afa ancient apes more similar to those of chimpanzees or humans? Contrary to previous claims, the intracranial imprints of the ancient apes of the Afa South show ape-like brain tissue with no human characteristics.
, however, comparisons of the cranial contents of infants and adults suggest that the Afa ancient ape needed long brain growth more like humans, which may have been crucial to learning and evolving in ancient humans over a long period of childhood.
the modern human brain is not only much larger than that of our closest ape, but also organized in a different way.
it takes longer for the human brain to mature.
, for example, modern humans study longer than chimpanzees, at the expense of relying entirely on parental care for longer periods of time.
these traits are generally important for human cognition and social behavior, the evolutionary origin of these traits remains unclear.
the brain does not become fossilized, but as it grows and expands before and after birth, the surrounding tissue in its outer layer leaves a mark on the skull.
based on these craniofacial models, the researchers were able to measure the build-up of cranial content and infer key information about brain tissue from brain imprints in the skull.
difference between apes and humans is the tissue in the top and pillow leaves of the brain.
"In all apes, a clear moon-like trench is located near the front boundary of the main visual cortical layer of the pillow leaf," said Dean Falk, a co-creator at Florida State University who explains intracranial imprints.
past, some people believed that changes in brain structure led to moon-like grooves moving more back in the skulls of southern apes (similar to humans) and eventually to the disappearance of clear intracranial imprints in humans.
assume that this brain recombination of southern apes may be related to more complex behaviors than their ape-like relatives (e.g., tool-making, mentalization, and sound communication).
, moon-like communication often doesn't replicate well on in-cell cells, so there has been controversy about its place in southern apes.
that the unusually intact fossils of ancient ape children found in Dikika have clear moon-shaped grooves in similar positions to among ape-like brains.
, computer fault scans revealed undiscovered moon-shaped groove imprints in the famous adult southern ape fossil (A.L. 162-28) found in Hadar.
contrary to previous beliefs, the researchers found no evidence of brain recombination in any fossils of the Afa Southern ancient ape that had preserved detailed moon groove imprints.
a computer fault scan of the tooth column of a baby's fossil by using a synchron accelerator, making it possible to determine a person's age of death by calculating the growth line of the tooth.
like a tree's wheel, the virtual cross-section of the teeth shows a growth line that reflects the rhythms inside the body.
by studying fossils of baby teeth found in Dikika, dental experts Paul Tafforeau (ESRF), Adeline Le Cabec (ESRF/Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) and Tanya Smith (Griffith University) calculated that the infant's age of death was 861 days (2.4 years).
Philipp Gunz, lead author of the study, said: "After seven years of research, we have finally assembled all the puzzles that study brain growth and evolution, including the age of death of Dikika babies and their cranial content, the best-preserved fossilized skulls of adult Afa Southern ancient apes, and more than 1,600 modern humans and chimpanzees.
"Dikika babies have teeth that develop at roughly the same rate as chimpanzees and are therefore faster than modern humans."
, however, given that the brains of adult Afa Southern apes are about 20 percent longer than those of chimpanzees, the small cranial contents of Dikika babies suggest that their brains develop longer than those of chimpanzees.
Simon Neubauer explains: "Even a conservative comparison of Dikika babies with small adult apes with small brains, such as Lucy, suggests that the brain development of the Afa Southern ape is as slow as that of today's humans.
"!--/ewebeditor:page--!--ewebeditor:page-title"--Philipp Gunz concludes: "Our data suggest that the Afaran ancient ape has brain tissue similar to that of apes, but this suggests that their brains have been developing longer than chimpanzees."
" In general, different growth and maturation speeds in primates are associated with different early childhood care strategies, suggesting that longer brain growth times in the Afa Southern ape may be associated with long-term dependence on caregivers.
, slow brain growth may also primarily represent a strategy to spread the energy needs of future generations over many years in an environment where food is inadequate.
in both cases, the long-term growth of the brain of the ancient ape in Afa Southern provides the basis for the subsequent evolution and social behavior of the human brain and may be critical to the evolution of long-term learning in children.
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