Its not a question I have ever heard before and not something that you think about. But why do we have chins? The first thought was that the chin is used to help the jaw stand up to the forces generated by chewing. New scientists do not believe that this is true. Research testing using 292 measurements to compare the development of the jaw and bone distribution associated with protecting against different stresses. They believe that development of the chin has nothing to do with resistance to bending stresses, but it is a results of our faces shrinking. They say an evolution toward smaller faces over time is being seen in the Homo genus. Homo sapiens are showing the most reduction in size. The jaw stops growing last making it more prominent compared to the rest of the face.
Now if we could explain the reason for our faces shrinking maybe we could have a better understanding to having a chin!
This article can be found here http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/why-humans-have-chins-150415.htm
Yeah I'm a little confused about the claim that the jaw stops growing last, but at the same time faces are shrinking. But it's still early in this research so maybe the scientists can explain that better.
ReplyDeleteI know that there wasn't much information about it. I just thought it was interesting to ask the question of why we have chins and why are some more dominant than others.
DeleteThat's crazy to think that our faces are shrinking as generations go on throughout time. But the stance that faces are shrinking does make since in the homo genus because it is evident that there were pronounced foreheads and larger bone structures in the face. I'm curious if we have achieved the optimal size ratio in our faces or if maybe thousands of years from now we might have a completely different looking facial structure.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I'm Sure that our facial structure will be different but I wouldn't say totally different, but who knows!!!
DeleteThis could be due to the loss of bone density over time?
ReplyDeleteThat is something to look into!
DeleteI think to really get an idea of how our chins are shrinking within the Homo species they should be taking measurements going all the way back to our first Homo ancestor Homo erectus and do some statistical analysis so that can then provide a true value as to how chins have been shrinking over time and through evolution.
ReplyDeleteWeird. We have smaller faces than our ancestors. So I wonder if some days humans won't have chins and they will look in their history books and learn about facebook and myspace and think we look weird because of our leftover bones.
ReplyDelete