At the time, Falk argued that four
endocasts from southern African hominids — three Australopithecus africanus and one Australopithecus sediba — showed folding patterns that suggested that brain reorganization was underway as early as 3 million years ago in a frontal area involved in human speech production.
Two grooves identified on
an endocast from a partial H. naledi skull frame the language - related section of Broca's area in humans today, Hurst said.
Not exact matches
Endocasts for this analysis came
from two other partial H. naledi skulls.
A 3D virtual
endocast was rendered
from CT - scans of MLDG 1704 (Figure 11A — D; Figures S1, S2, S3, S4).
The Maludong
endocast is broader and taller than the Chinese Pleistocene H. sapiens cranium
from Liujiang (breadth 115 mm, height 95 mm), and much broader than the
endocast of the late Upper Pleistocene Japanese Minatogawa I cranium (112 mm).
Its frontal lobe is, however, very distinct
from the
endocast of the H. rhodesiensis Kabwe cranium (breadth 108 mm, height 88 mm, chord 78 mm), broader and longer than NEAND
endocasts (breadth 107 mm, chord 82 mm) and broader, longer and taller than ERECT (breadth: 99 ± 8 mm; z2.64, p0.01; height: 74 ± 11 mm; 2.18, p0.02; chord: 76 ± 6 mm; z1.60).