Endocast

As Schädelausguss or endocast (of English. Endocranial cast = cast of the skull interior ( neurocranium ) ) is referred to, especially in paleontology and paleoanthropology one produced naturally or artificially in the laboratory, spatial simulation of the brain. Here, the inside of the skull is used as a template. Because the brain turns to a certain extent inculcate among other things, in the inside of the skull, these are - vice versa - in a endocast visible. An endocast can therefore - as an almost lifelike image of the missing organ - provide information about the arrangement and size of individual areas of the brain.

Schädelausgüsse can be prepared in the laboratory by a skull, for example, filled with plaster. However, they can also occur in nature, if a skull with sand and mud fills and hardens and petrifies the material later. Then it can happen that the skull bones decompose, but the Schädelausguss remains as a fossil. In more recent times are by means of computed tomography and other imaging procedures "virtual Schädelausgüsse " established so that damage to the often precious and delicate skull bones is avoided.

Founder of the systematic analysis of fossil Schädelausgüssen, the Paläoneurologie, to clarify issues in evolutionary research, was Tilly Edinger ( 1897-1967 ).

Particularly well known is the 2.4 million years old natural Schädelausguss the " Taung child ", which is the fossil of an approximately three-year Australopithecus africanus, a pre-human, is. Also in the ongoing scientific debate about the classification of Homo floresiensis in the human family tree plays the analysis of Schädelausgusses from fossil LB1 a role.