Five million years of punch-ups have given human race a face fit for fighting

Evidence suggests it evolved to minimise damage from bruising altercations after our ancient ancestors learned how to throw a punch.

Researchers studied the bone structure of australopiths, ape-like bipeds living four to five million years ago that pre-dated the modern human primate family Homo. They found that australopith faces and jaws were strongest in just those areas most likely to receive a blow from a fist.

It is a legacy that continues to this day, helping to explain why men’s faces are more robust than women’s, say the scientists.

It seems men at the dawn of human evolution were more likely to get into a prehistoric punch-up.

US lead researcher Dr David Carrier, from the University of Utah, said: “If the evolution of our hand proportions were associated with selection for fighting behaviour you might expect the primary target, the face, to have undergone evolution to better protect it from injury when punched.”

The study, in the journal Biological Reviews, builds on previous work indicating that violence may be far more innate in human nature than many social scientists would like to admit.