Question

What are at least three differences between apes and humans in the cranium and teeth?

Answer 1

 The following are key characteristics of ape skulls that human skulls do not have:

(1) Prognathic Jaws: A chimpanzee’s maxilla (upper jaw) and mandible (lower jaw) protrude significantly. Typically, the bone from the nose to the tip of upper teeth extrudes out at about a 45 degree angle, whereas a line drawn from the nose to the chin of a typical human is vertical or concave.

(2) Large Brow Ridges above the eye sockets. Humans have negligible brow ridges.

(3) Absent or small laid back forehead: Apes lack significant vertical foreheads. Humans have large vertical foreheads, which provide room for the much larger frontal lobeof our brains. This is an important difference, as the large frontal lobe of the human brain allows us the ability to make decisions and solve problems. It also controls our behaviors, voluntary movements, emotions, and consciousness. Without a forehead, an animal would not have room for a large frontal lobe, and could not perform functions that differentiate animals from humans. The ability to make tools, improve on them, and the ability to remember how to make them, wouldn’t be possible without a forehead and large frontal lobe.

(4) Small Ovoid or Flat Cranium that houses their much smaller brains. Human adult craniums are about two to three times the volume of ape craniums. Ape craniums are narrower than the lateral extents of the eye sockets, whilst human craniums are far wider then the outer extend of their eye sockets.