Eyebrows: A Hidden Force In Human Evolution?

(Credit: Wikimedia Commons) From Spock to "The Rock," arched eyebrows can speak volumes. Now researchers suggest that communicative eyebrows may have proven key to the evolution of modern humans, a marked advance over the prominent brow ridges of early humans. Modern humans possess smooth foreheads with expressive eyebrows. In contrast, early humans had sloping foreheads with thick brow ridges. "There have been many explanations over the years for why early humans had these huge bony ridges," said study co-author Paul O'Higgins, a physical anthropologist at the University of York in England. "One is that they served kind of like a big girder across the head, protecting the skull when one bites hard. Another suggestion was that their faces were so enormous, they didn't fit under the brain, so these brow ridges sat forward simply to fit the gap between the forehead and the eye sockets."