Why do humans have chins?

Chins: we all have them, sitting a bit uselessly at the bottom of our faces. Some people have strong chins, others are said to have weaker chins. But if you were pushed to explain what chins are actually for, would you have a good answer? Nobody seems to use their chin for anything useful.

It becomes even stranger when you consider that among the all primates - including our extinct relatives - only we have chins. Nobody seems to know why - although over the last century several theories as to its purpose have been offered.

A review of all the previous literature now seeks to put some of these assertions straight. "They [chins] are really strange, and that kind of drew my attention," says James Pampush of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who has been studying our humble chin for several years. "Nobody had put forward a good idea about why humans would be the only animals with chins," so he set out to to untangle the enduring puzzle of the human chin in a recent review.

Read the full article here.