page_title: Brow ridge
section_title: Function
hierarchical_section_title: Brow ridge / Structure / Function
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of a Rugby player taken at Kowloon RugbyFest 2012, King's Park, Ho Man Tin, Kowloon. He has a pronounced supraorbital ridge.
context_page_description: The brow ridge, or supraorbital ridge known as superciliary arch in medicine, refers to a bony ridge located above the eye sockets of all primates. In Homo sapiens sapiens the eyebrows are located on their lower margin.
context_section_description: The brow ridge functions to reinforce the weaker bones of the face in much the same way that the chin of modern humans reinforces their comparatively thin mandibles. This was necessary in pongids and early hominids because of the tremendous strain put on the cranium by their powerful chewing apparatuses, which is best demonstrated by any of the members of the genus Paranthropus. The brow ridge was one of the last traits to be lost in the path to anatomically modern humans, and only disappeared in a majority of modern humans with the development of the modern pronounced frontal lobe. This is one of the most salient differences between Homo sapiens and other species like the Homo neanderthalensis.
caption: Image of a rugby player with a pronounced supraorbital ridge.
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