Key finding: "Both cranial and dental remains indicate that prenatal growth rates increased over the last 6 million years. Along with fossilized pelvis and head anatomy, these findings support the theory that long human-like pregnancies evolved within the last few hundred thousand to million years, during the Pleistocene."
There's a Weird Link Between Teeth And The Evolution of Pregnancy
Human babies pack a lot of growth into those nine months between conception and birth to give them and their meaty, complex brains a chance at survival.
Just how evolution came to grant humans such a comparatively rapid prenatal growth rate has never been clear.
Given how critical brain growth is to early human development, and head size, in turn, influences the size of our jaws, researchers suspected teeth may hold some valuable information on our ancestors' pregnancies....