High latitude habitats are subject to thermally-driven energetic constraints that make their occupation challenging. This is likely to have had a particularly significant impact on energy-expensive tissue like the brain, especially during periods of lower global temperatures during the Mid-Pleistocene Ice Ages. I analyse data on endocranial volumes for archaic humans (Homo heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis and allies) to show (1) that cranial volumes were typically smaller at high latitudes than in the tropics and (2) that they declined during cold phases and increased during warm phases of the Middle Pleistocene Ice Ages. Within this broad pattern, there is a significant uplift in cranial volumes after 400 ka that seems to coincide with widespread presence of hearths at high latitudes, suggesting that hominin populations might have gained at least partial release from this constraint through cultural control over fire. While this might pinpoint the time at which hominins first began to cook on a regular basis, fire offers other important benefits (notably warmth and extending the length of the working day) that might have played an equally important role in buffering populations against thermal stresses. The larger brain sizes that this made possible have implications for social cognitive capacities like mentalising, that in turn have implications for language skills, cultural behaviour and social group size.

中文翻译：

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中更新世古人类大脑进化和认知的热制约


高纬度栖息地受到热驱动的能量限制，这使得它们的占用具有挑战性。这可能对大脑等能源昂贵的组织产生了特别重大的影响，尤其是在更新世中期冰河时代全球气温较低的时期。我分析了古人类（Homo heidelbergensis、H. neanderthalensis 及其盟友）的颅内体积数据，以表明 （1） 高纬度地区的颅骨体积通常比热带地区小，以及 （2） 它们在中更新世冰河时代的寒冷阶段下降，而在温暖阶段增加。在这个广泛的模式中，400 ka 之后颅骨体积的显著增加似乎与高纬度地区炉灶的广泛存在相吻合，这表明古人类种群可能通过对火的文化控制至少部分地摆脱了这种限制。虽然这可能可以确定古人类开始定期烹饪的时间，但火提供了其他重要的好处（特别是温暖和延长工作日的长度），这些好处可能在缓冲种群免受热应激方面发挥了同样重要的作用。这使得更大的大脑尺寸对社会认知能力（如心理）有影响，这反过来又对语言技能、文化行为和社会群体规模有影响。