Argentina’s 19th-Century Cholera Outbreaks Show the Myth of a Single, Definitive Conclusion

For decades, scientists have heralded the idea that human brains have increased in size over the course of history, evolving in modern humans be much larger than that of our Neanderthal cousins. In October 2021, DeSilva et al., seemingly added more evidence to this hypothesis with a paper that concluded the human brain shrank during the transition to modern urban societies about 3,000 years ago. And while this supported previous literature, the research did establish a new timeline—marking brain decrease as late as the last Ice Age.

Anthropologists believe that brain size has remained dynamic in size. It nearly quadrupled in the six million years since Homo last shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees, but human brains are thought to have decreased in volume since the end of the last Ice Age.

According to the scientific consensus, in the last 6 million years, the size of the human brain increased roughly three times in parallel with the appearance of various new, increasingly complex activities, and then reached its maximum 10-15 thousand years ago, which is considered yesterday in the evolutionary time scale.

The organ's size has actually held steady over the past 300,000 years, according to new research that reassessed data on brain evolution.

The contention the human brain shrank sharply around 3,000 years ago, coinciding with the establishment of cities, has captured popular and scientific imagination, but new evidence suggests it never happened.

The 12th century BC, when humans were forging great empires and developing new forms of written text, did not coincide with an evolutionary reduction in brain size.

Last year's study was sharply criticized by a team of scientists from UNLV, who found many ambiguities in it.

New research has demolished previous theories about evolution, as researchers find that human brains did not shrink 3,000 year ago.

Did the 12th century B.C.E. — a time when humans were forging great empires and developing new forms of written text — coincide with an evolutionary reduction in brain size? Think again, says a UNLV-led team of researchers who refute a hypothesis that’s growing increasingly popular among the science community. 

The public’s reaction to Thursday night’s strip shooting was something experts call – priming effect. 8 News Now spoke to a UNLV psychologist about this and how dangerous it can be because of social media.

In previous research released in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, experts asserted that the human brain shrank amid a transition to modern urban societies nearly 3,000 years ago.