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Letter: Investigating how smaller tools led to bigger brains

Published 29 April 2026

From Margaret Woodhouse, New Tredegar, Caerphilly, UK

The suggestion that switching from large to smaller prey drove the increase in brain size of early humans raises an obvious question. How did smaller-brained humans with the stone tools described manage to kill “massive plant-eating prey”? An animal is hardly likely to stand still and wait to be axed or clubbed to death at close quarters (18 April, p 10). The tools were suitable for butchering, but surely the early humans were scavenging, not killing large prey?

Issue no. 3593 published 2 May 2026

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