Your late relatives, the Neanderthals, had slightly longer faces, too. And they had a much more pronounced bone structure.
Because humans and Neanderthals interbred, some of those characteristics were incorporated into our faces, says Steven Churchill, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University who studied ancient skulls to find this effect.
“Neanderthals were just bigger than humans,” Churchill said. “Over time, the size of human faces became smaller, generations after they had bred with Neanderthals. But the actual shape of some facial features retained evidence of interbreeding with Neanderthals.”