Anthropologists Find American Heads Are Getting Larger

ScienceDaily (May 30, 2012) — White Americans' heads are getting bigger. That's according to research by forensic anthropologists at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Is it just me, or is this title a metaphor? Not just Americans, but white Americans no less. However, according to the article, our heads (fellow white Americans that is) are also getting more narrow.

So is one to deduce that we (in this current state of existence) have big heads and are narrow minded?

Lee Jantz, coordinator of UT's Forensic Anthropology Center (FAC); Richard Jantz, professor emeritus and former director of the FAC; and Joanne Devlin, adjunct assistant professor, examined 1,500 skulls dating back to the mid-1800s through the mid-1980s. They noticed U.S. skulls have become larger, taller and narrower as seen from the front and faces have become significantly narrower and higher.

The researchers cannot pinpoint a reason as to why American head shapes are changing and whether it is primarily due to evolution or lifestyle changes.

"The varieties of changes that have swept American life make determining an exact cause an endlessly complicated proposition," said Lee Jantz. "It likely results from modified growth patterns because of better nutrition, lower infant and maternal mortality, less physical work, and a breakdown of former ethnic barriers to marriage. Which of these is paramount we do not know."

Interesting article imo, more so, why whatever is causing this only effects white Americans is interesting as seemingly all races would be prevalent to the same reasons of cause as the scientists claim in the article.

To the metaphorical side, well, "you don't say" comes to mind. From that there stems only one reason really...ego

Source Article: Anthropologists Find American Heads Are Getting Larger

Is the brain getting bigger or the skull getting thicker?