Just in time for Valentine's Day, CNN reports on an anthropological study that explains why Homo Erectus had such a thick skull:

After studying fossils in a region called Dragon Bone Hill in China, anthropologist Russell Ciochon of the University of Iowa concluded males of the species were clubbing one another over the head, probably to win females.

Those with thicker skulls who survived these bloody confrontations would pass that trait to offspring, Ciochon said.

If you're male and you've been through high school, you should be very familiar with the mating-selection process that seems to favor aggressive, thick-skulled candidates who had no problem beating the others on the heads with clubs ... and books, and hoses, and rocks, and really almost anything else on hand, including the hand. The process is not limited to high school, either; you can observe the same results at nightclubs and other places where the younger crowd socializes. In fact, I observed this almost throughout the entirety of my single life, until I met the First Mate, who professed a distaste for head-butting as a romantic gesture.

Perhaps this article should be required reading for adolescent women, with the caveat, "If you make these kinds of choices, you'll wind up with thick-headed offspring." I know that would make millions of male chess-playing marching-band members very, very happy.

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