This publication is the result of the fifth interdisciplinary Fyssen symposium that took place in 1990 in France. It includes, along with the papers presented, select excerpts from discussions among the participants that followed the presentations. The book is organized into four parts entitled anatomy of the brain, genetics, culture, and intelligence.
The first part includes two chapters on the fossil record, two chapters on hominid endocasts, one study on vessels, and one chapter on developmental mechanisms. Rakic's chapter addresses the mechanisms involved in the development of the cortex and their implications for issues regarding the evolution of the primate cortex. It is a valuable contribution to this volume. Tobias' chapter is a comprehensive review of the hominid endocasts that, along with Saban's chapter on meningeal vessels, provides a useful treatment of the issues.
The topic that is absent from this part of the book, a part meant to be devoted to the anatomy of the brain, is the anatomy of the brain itself. With the exception of Holloway's reference in his chapter to some studies of comparative neuroanatomy, this important field of study is not included in this volume. Few, if anybody, would argue that the organization of the extant brain is peripheral to the question of the evolution of the human brain. Comparative neuroanatomy is crucial to the understanding of species-specific adaptations in behavior, of neural circuits underlying cognitive, and other functions, and consequently of issues pertaining to the origins of the human brain. Mere consideration of relationships, such as total brain size to body size, is inadequate for the understanding of species-specific adaptations and the underlying neural circuitry. It is the study of specific neural circuits or cortical areas that, if targeted and compared across closely related taxa, can provide answers to evolutionary questions.
Cytoarchitectonic maps of the cortex, the quantification of the cortex, as well as combined studies involving connections, myelin, and immunohistological markers can provide a solid basis to compare the organization of the brain across species, allowing plausible suggestions to be made regarding the evolution of the human brain. In particular, knowledge of the brain of the extant apes, as compared to the human brain, can assist in the identification of features that are shared among hominoids or are unique to humans and thus have developed during hominid evolution after the split from the apes. This is a very promising direction if we really want to unravel the mysteries of what makes the human brain and consequently the human mind unique among primates.
Computerized imaging technology, stereological sampling methods, and improved staining techniques are now available and can help to overcome many obstacles of the past. The field of comparative neuroanatomy has been enjoying increasing attention in the 1990s, and some of these new advances have been