

Understanding the evolution of the hominin brain is challenging because brain tissue does not fossilise. Inferences on brain structure and function in fossil species are made based on the anatomy of endocranial casts, the positive casts of the cranial cavity, which houses the brain when individuals are alive.
Living primates provide the closest comparative context where brain variation can be compared with endocranial variation. Through this project, the patterns of covariation between brain anatomy and endocranial anatomy will be assessed across primates using MRI-scans and CT-scans, respectively.
This comparative context will be used to quantitatively infer patterns of brain variation in fossil hominins based on the variation of their endocranial casts, and to model brain evolution across hominins. This project will provide fundamental insight into when and how hominin species evolved their species-specific brain specialisations.
The project will use a combination of virtual anthropology and quantitative approaches, including 3D geometric morphometrics, phylogenetic comparative methods and evolutionary modelling.
Understanding brain variation and evolution across primates is fundamental to elucidate how primates interact with their environments, which has potential implications for conservation. This primate comparative context is essential to understand the changes undergone by fossil hominins, which have deep implications for human health and development.
The student will be trained in virtual anthropology techniques (surface- and CT-scanning; segmentation; retrodeformation; etc) at UCL using the facilities at the Department of Anthropology and at the Centre for Integrative Anatomy (Department of Cell and Developmental Biology). The student will be trained in 3D geometric morphometric techniques (manual, semiautomatic and automatic landmarking; shape analysis; etc) at the Department of Anthropology of UCL. Training on phylogenetic comparative methods and evolutionary modelling will be provided by project supervisors, with additional online support from project collaborators based in the US. Training sessions will consist of one-on-one sessions with the primary supervisor, but the student will also have substantial peer support from other PhD students in our department working on projects that rely on similar techniques.
A student working on this project would be able to move on to academic positions (postdocs and beyond) in the fields of biological anthropology, primatology, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience. The intensive handling of virtual collections would make this student well qualified to work in museums, in roles related to collection management (e.g., curator roles). Beyond academia, the anatomical and virtual anthropology skills acquired by this student would allow them to work on health-related fields (e.g., prosthetics) or any other field involving a deep knowledge of the human body (e.g., forensics). Quantitative and analytical skills acquired during the PhD period would allow this student to move on to analytical desk-based jobs, such as data analysts.