Ancient head case

A new analysis by anthropologists of the 1.8-million-year-old skullcap of a Homo erectus child, discovered on the Indonesian island of Java in 1936, indicates that the youngster’s brain grew relatively quickly, much as the brains of modern chimpanzees do.

The prehistoric child died at around age 1 but already possessed a brain case that was at least three-quarters the size of that for an average adult H.