生物谷报道:不知你是否留意到,与原始人类相比,现代男人的下巴和脸颊更加明显。英国科学家的一项最新研究表明,具有宽大下巴、醒目的脸颊以及宽大眉毛等面部特征的远古人类对异性更有吸引力,这在人类面部进化过程中起到了重要的作用。相关论文在线发表于《公共科学图书馆·综合》(PLoS ONE)上。
外表是许多动物选择配偶的重要因素,人类也不例外。具有吸引异性面容的远古男性更容易获得交配繁衍的机会,而他们的性状也会逐渐遗传下来。通过研究人类祖先的化石,英国自然历史博物馆(Natural History Museum)的科学家们发现,男性在进化过程中,眉毛和上嘴唇之间的距离逐渐缩短,这一改变使他们的下巴慢慢增大,脸颊和眉毛也逐渐突显出来。
此外,研究人员发现,伴随着上述过程,男性进化出了更短却更宽的脸型。同时,他们的犬齿变小,外表的威胁程度降低,对异性的吸引力增加。
英国自然历史博物馆的考古学家Eleanor Weston表示,“人类面部进化是理解异性之间相互吸引的重要一环。”(科学网)
原始出处:
Received: November 29, 2006; Accepted: July 11, 2007; Published: August 8, 2007
Biometric Evidence that Sexual Selection Has Shaped the Hominin Face
Eleanor M. Weston1,2*¤, Adrian E. Friday2, Pietro Liò3
1 Department of Biology, University College London, London, United Kingdom, 2 University Museum of Zoology, Downing Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom, 3 Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, William Gates Building, Cambridge, United Kingdom
We consider sex differences in human facial morphology in the context of developmental change. We show that at puberty, the height of the upper face, between the lip and the brow, develops differently in males and females, and that these differences are not explicable in terms of sex differences in body size. We find the same dimorphism in the faces of human ancestors. We propose that the relative shortening in men and lengthening in women of the anterior upper face at puberty is the mechanistic consequence of extreme maxillary rotation during ontogeny. A link between this developmental model and sexual dimorphism is made for the first time, and provides a new set of morphological criteria to sex human crania. This finding has important implications for the role of sexual selection in the evolution of anthropoid faces and for theories of human facial attractiveness.
Figure 2. Skeletal craniofacial variables relate to facial appearance.
We show that adult males have relatively shorter upper faces for their breadth compared to females (Table 1,2, Figure 1 and Figures S2 and S3). Lines superimposed on the pictures illustrate this facial dimorphism: vertical lines are positioned against the left and right zygion, and horizontal lines are positioned against the nasion and prosthion of the male face. In comparison to the female face, the male face is wider (represented by the distance between left and right point zygion) and the upper facial height (represented by the distance between point nasion and point prosthion) is approximately the same. The photographs are presented as taken, with identical camera-to-subject distance, and without rescaling, in order to represent the actual size of the faces.