The shape of the human skull has changed significantly during the last 600 years, according to research carried out by the University of Birmingham.
A team from the university's School of Dentistry spent ten years looking at extensive measurements from radio-graphic films of a number of skulls from different centuries.
According to the team's study, the size of the modern man's cranial vault has increased by more than one centimetre since medieval times.
This shows that the human brain has become larger and is continuing to develop, which may be because of the increased usage of the brain in everyday life.
The university's findings have also shown that people today have less prominent facial features and a noticeably larger lower jaw.
Dr Peter Rock, who led the research, said: "How we are changing as a species is a fasc inating question. The increased intracranial dimensions and high foreheads of the modern group are evidence that brain size has increased over the centuries.
"The plague skulls are only 30 generations removed from today and the Mary Rose skulls just 22 generations removed, yet the differences are striking.
"We have the brain capacity to think more than we used to. Whether we utilise it is a different question entirely."
The oldest skulls used by the team for the study belonged to a group of 30 plague victims of the Black Death epidemic, who died between 1348 and 1349. They were excavated from plague pits near the site of the Royal Mint in London during the 1980s.
A second group of 54 skulls from the 16th century were also used for the research. They were recovered from the wreckage of the Mary Rose, which sank in 1545.
