The brain and inner ear ducts are critical for an animal’s survival yet (almost) never fossilise. To learn how these neural and sensory structures have changed over human evolution, we can look to endocranial casts of the skull and bony labyrinth that surround them. In this talk, I’ll discuss endocranial evidence of Homo naledi, a surprisingly small-brained hominin that lived in South Africa around 300,000 years ago. To contextualise the significance of Plio-Pleistocene hominin variation, I will look to another leafy branch in the primate evolutionary tree—the small apes of South East Asia.

Dr. Zachary Cofran is a biological anthropologist studying growth and development in humans and our close relatives, both living and extinct.