An interesting new development. Discover Magazine released an article about a new human ancestor which apparently had a bigger brain than you or I. They call it the Boskop and it lived in South Africa from 30,000 to 10,000 BC http://discovermagazine.com/2009/the-brain-2/28-what-happened-to-hominids-who-were-smarter-than-us/article_view I'm not sure if I agree with everything the article has to say about these freaky little creatures, especially the bits about it having an estimated 150 IQ (gee did they consult a Phrenologist for that one?) or the insinuation that it may have inspired our concept of the bug-eyed big brained diminutive alien (aka the Grays). But it did jive quite cleanly with all the studying I've been doing lately for my most recent novel. Consider the time period. 20,000 years is a short expanse of time when prehistory is in question, but it's still two to three times longer than we've been civilized on this planet. A few months ago I caught an episode of NOVA which mentioned the possibility of an ancient tribe of people living in South Africa who subsisted on a diet made entirely of seafood. Fish is a known brain food - high in protein and amino acids while being low in calories - maybe this is what we become when human beings eat nothing but a marine based diet for twenty to thirty thousand years. Small in body and big in the brain. The mystery of their disappearance? To me it's not that big of a surprise. The big event which surrounds 10,000 BC is called the Younger Dryas. No one is sure of the details but it seems to be a cataclysm caused by a massive influx of fresh water into the North Atlantic which changed weather patterns, flooded coastlines and suddenly plunged the preternaturally warm continent of Europe back into the frozen core of the Ice Age. It may have been caused by a comet hitting the Laurentide Ice Sheet which once covered Canada, or massive volcanic activity under the ocean which broke apart a glacial cap that had formed over the north pole. We don't know. We just know it happened. Doubtlessly the response to the Younger Dryas would have been a massive migration of people out of Europe and into North Africa. The greening of the Sahara has yet to happen so the North Africans living there would have been strapped for resources and may have pushed into Central Africa. The Central Africans probably then pushed into South Africa, and the Boskops by being small in body at a time when muscle sincerely mattered were probably either wiped out or assimilated. Or, they may have have built flying saucers, founded Atlantis, harnessed pyramid power and only occasionally returned to Africa to pester the inhabitants. That's right - the final resting place of the Great Gazoo has been found! And Fred Flintstone was not just imagining things! Interesting update.... I just finished watching an episode of NOVA called "What Darwin Didn't Know" (highly recommended btw) and in it a scientist studying Muscular Dystrophy put forth an interesting observation that it may have been a genetic change millions of years ago which resulted in the reduced development of the muscles we use for chewing which resulted in less pressure on the skull and a greater chance for the brain case to expand and harbor a bigger brain. One thing which separates us from the great apes is diet. Where they tend to be herbivorous, we tend to be omnivorous if not outright carnivorous. A meat eater's diet still requires strong jaw muscles (especially where ripping and tearing raw muscle is concerned - don't ask me how I know :-) but carnivores don't need to eat as much as herbivores do to meet their energy and protein needs so their jaw muscles don't need to be as powerful. A marine diet - once you get past the cracking of shells - is one of the softest diets around, very little chewing is actually necessary. Being high protein but low calorie it might have inspired a more laid-back lifestyle which was quite possibly the key to atrophying the muscle which kept the size of the skull in check, thus creating a much bigger brain case than what we have today. So far as their extinction is concerned, to put things in the terms of "survival of the sexiest" when one considers the complications of a big headed birth, it could be that the influx of Central Africans into South Africa introduced to them a more attractive small headed and larger muscled mate which eventually caused the Boskop to be bred out of existence. | 
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