Humans possess the most expressive faces in the animal kingdom. Adam Wilkins presents evidence ranging from the fossil record to recent findings of genetics, molecular biology, and developmental biology to reconstruct the fascinating story of how the human face evolved. Beginning with the first vertebrate faces half a billion years ago and continuing to dramatic changes among our recent human ancestors, Making Faces illuminates how the unusual characteristics of the human face came about—both the physical shape of facial features and the critical role facial expression plays in human society. Offering more than an account of morphological changes over time and space, which rely on findings from paleontology and anthropology, Wilkins also draws on comparative studies of living nonhuman species. He examines the genetic foundations of the remarkable diversity in human faces, and also shows how the evolution of the face was intimately connected to the evolution of the brain. Brain structures capable of recognizing different individuals as well as “reading” and reacting to their facial expressions led to complex social exchanges. Furthermore, the neural and muscular mechanisms that created facial expressions also allowed the development of speech, which is unique to humans. In demonstrating how the physical evolution of the human face has been inextricably intertwined with our species’ growing social complexity, Wilkins argues that it was both the product and enabler of human sociality.

In one sense, human heads function much like those of other mammals. We use them to chew, smell, swallow, think, hear, and so on. But, in other respects, the human head is quite unusual. Unlike other animals, even our great ape cousins, our heads are short and wide, very big brained, snoutless, largely furless, and perched on a short, nearly vertical neck. Daniel E. Lieberman sets out to explain how the human head works, and why our heads evolved in this peculiarly human way. Exhaustively researched and years in the making, this innovative book documents how the many components of the head function, how they evolved since we diverged from the apes, and how they interact in diverse ways both functionally and developmentally, causing them to be highly integrated. This integration not only permits the head’s many units to accommodate each other as they grow and work, but also facilitates evolutionary change. Lieberman shows how, when, and why the major transformations evident in the evolution of the human head occurred. The special way the head is integrated, Lieberman argues, made it possible for a few developmental shifts to have had widespread effects on craniofacial growth, yet still permit the head to function exquisitely. This is the first book to explore in depth what happened in human evolution by integrating principles of development and functional morphology with the hominin fossil record. The Evolution of the Human Head will permanently change the study of human evolution and has widespread ramifications for thinking about other branches of evolutionary biology.

Explores and describes the evolutionary history of the face, facial forms and types, sexual and racial characteristics, structural characteristics and alteration, artificial decoration and concealment, expressive and communicative factors, and the various theories of physiognomists.

The human face contains important organs which perform vital functions such as eating and breathing, sensory functions such as seeing and smelling, as well as signaling sex, emotions, and identity. It is also quite variable within and across human populations. Very little is known about the evolution of facial shape in humans, or the genetic architecture underlying the development of facial shape. In this dissertation, I have investigated the evolutionary genetics of certain aspects of the three-dimensional shape of the human face. In chapter one, I provide a literature review of the various hypotheses regarding the evolution of facial shape and the current evidence supporting them. In chapter two, I used a quantitative genetic framework to test the hypothesis that human variation in the shape of the nose seems to have been influenced by local adaptation to temperature. The results from this chapter suggest that the evolution of certain aspects of human nose shape, such as nostril size and nasal ridge may have been driven by local adaptation to temperature. In chapter three, I used an admixture mapping approach to identify three genomic loci associated with nose shape variation in a sample of individuals with mixed African and European ancestry. The nearest genes to the admixture peaks are LHX8 (LIM Homeobox 8), MITF (Micropthalmia-associated transcription factor), and, UACA (Uveal autoantigen with coiled-coil domains and ankyrin repeats). Chapter four is an investigation in the effects of genetic heterozygosity on traits such as facial asymmetry, facial masculinity, and height, which are thought to signal genetic quality and immunocompetence. Finally, in chapter five, I discuss the evolutionary implications of these results and future directions for this research.

"Bibliography in physical anthropology," 1942/43- in Dec. issue.