Supraorbital ridge

The supraorbital ridge, supraorbital torus, superciliary ridge, arcus superciliaris, or brow ridge, refer to a bony ridge located above the eye sockets of all primates. In Homo sapiens sapiens (modern man) the eyebrows are located on their lower margin.

Anthropological concept
The size of these ridges varies also between different species of Primate, either living or fossil. The closest living relatives of man, the Great Apes, have relatively pronounced supraorbital ridges, while in modern humans it is relatively reduced. The fossil record indicates that the supraorbital ridge in early homo was reduced as the cranial vault grew and became positioned vertically, above the face.

Some palaeanthropologists distinguish between "torus" and "ridge." In anatomy a torus is a projecting shelf of bone. Fossil hominids, in this theory, have the torus, but modern humans only have the ridge.

Purpose
The brow ridge is a thick piece of bone on top of the eyes. Its purpose is to reinforce the weaker bones of the face in much the same way that the chin of modern humans was developed to reinforce their comparatively thin mandibles. This was necessary in pongids and early hominids because of the tremendous strain put on the cranium by their tremendous chewing apparatuses, which is best demonstrated by any of the members of the genus Paranthropus. The brow ridge was one of the last traits to be lost in the path to modern humans, and only disappeared with the development of the modern pronounced frontal lobe. This is one of the most salient differences between Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis The name for this theory is the Bio-mechanical model for brow ridge formation.

Myths
The folk-myth that the size of the ridges is a mark of the degree of development of rationality has no basis in fact. There is no link between the size of the ridges and any other anatomical trait, including intelligence, in modern humans.

In modern humans
Some varieties of modern man have slightly more pronounced ridges than others; for example, indigenous Australians, conventionally termed "aborigines." However, there is no basic genetic difference between these people and any other type of modern humans, and again, the presence of a brow ridge is not in any way indicative of intelligence or development.