February 2026
On weekend visits to the Natural History Museum here in NYC (the AMNH), you can go to a room off to the side of the main exhibit in the Hall of Human Origins and see and touch replicas of the skulls of all types of Hominins (upright-walking apes, like us). I’m holding a replica of the Herto skull from Ethiopia, aged at 160,000+ years. An early Homo sapiens type of person who had brow ridges. Brow ridges were to eventually disappear, but some have a theory that they may be a hold-over from a % of Neanderthal DNA that they, as modern people, carry in there genetic structure. I’m not sure about the Neanderthal origin of brow ridges in H. sapiens, however, since Herto and other early sapiens, such as the skull found at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, had brow ridges as well, and being discovered in Africa, where Neanderthals rarely ventured, sapiens brow ridges may indicate a non-Neanderthal origin of brow ridges in people today.
Speaking of which, I was looking for an image of a Homo erectus skullcap and brow ridges online, because I guessed wrong at the model available at the AMNH and realized how little I know about early humans. Here’s the skull I mistakenly thought belonged to a Paranthropus individual:
But obviously, it has a rounded brain case, indicating that it is a Homo specimen. I have a lot of learning to do, but fortunately, all of the learning I have yet to do is fun and interesting.
The image search for the erectus skullcap and brow ridges above, led to a whole other place: plastic surgery and facial reconstruction to remove brow ridges, to smooth them out, in people who would like a smoother and more anatomically modern human brow. Here are some before and after images of people who have had surgery done. I always prefer the “before,” since the “Neanderthal” or archaic part of us is appealing, attractive, and interesting:
So, yes, there’s always something surprising going on that gives the tug of war between our Neanderthal and Homo sapiens genes momentum. As stated above, I prefer the brow ridges to the smooth and egg-shaped new facial construction.