IQ of Ancient Man

[wd40]

What was the IQ of ancient man, and his immediate precursors?

Although he couldn't write, read, speak or take a "Mensa IQ test paper" as we understand it, presumably an average homo sapiens of 250,000 years ago by definition had the same IQ of an average homo sapiens of today: ie 100.

Might it have been actually higher than today ie although he knew much less than us, he could make much more intelligent use of what little he had?

More recently, might one say that eg the builders of the Great Pyramid had to have had IQs >140 to pull off such a novel complex structure, without any precedent or previous example to work on, and without any of our amenities?

Presumably for Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus etc the term "IQ" is not applicable, and that Homo Neanderthalis was c90?

Anything lower is what is termed today by psychologists today in the categories of "idiot, cretin, imbecile, retard, moron" etc

[swampyankee]

In response to your last sentence, NO! Professionals most definitely do not use the terms idiot, imbecile, etc.

In response to the other sentences? Neglecting that IQ may not be a valid measure of anything, I suspect that the consensus opinion is that human intelligence has not changed in a few tens of thousands of years. I also would be quite certain that the consensus opinion would also be that there is absolutely no way to actually measure IQs of people from the 19th Century, let alone 5000 years BP.

[Swift]

Presumably for Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus etc the term "IQ" is not applicable, and that Homo Neanderthalis was c90?

I've heard many people question whether the IQ test is applicable to Homo sapiens sapiens, given such things as cultural bias. I suspect it is even more so for other species.

Anything lower is what is termed today by psychologists today in the categories of "idiot, cretin, imbecile, retard, moron" etc

As swampyankee said, that is not only false, but I would add insulting. I have not heard most of those words used in polite company in a long time.

[HenrikOlsen]

By the definition of IQ, the average IQ of the current population would be 100. Any current population. Even if it consisted entirely of baboons.

As for how they would score on current tests compared to current population? Likely much lower than 100 because the tests have a very strong cultural bias and don't really give a meaningful measure of anything except how good people are at solving those types of problems. Some of the most stupid people I've ever met would score quite high on an IQ test.

[Shaula]

More recently, might one say that eg the builders of the Great Pyramid had to have had IQs >140 to pull off such a novel complex structure, without any precedent or previous example to work on, and without any of our amenities?

There were precedents. They had several known goes at pyramids before, some of which have names like "the bent pyramid" - giving you an idea of how they developed.... There is even a clear link from mastabas to pyramids in the step pyramid.

They did an amazing job, don't get me wrong, but there was no miraculous about it. Nothing that required superhuman IQs or the like. Just solid experience with cutting and placing stone and a near bottomless supply of labour. No health and safety teams probably helped speed things up too...

[Hernalt]

Control of fire by early humans
"Evidence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus beginning some 400,000 years ago have wide scholarly support, while claims regarding earlier evidence is mostly dismissed as inconclusive or sketchy.[3]"

Keeping general, "control" implies sense of duration of tool, sense of storage or maintenance of tool, sense of caution concerning tool. I've heard of no animal coming close to this, although there are many tool-using and problem-solving animals.

[Paul Beardsley]

This is not the first time I've read an OP so riddled with factual errors that the main value of the thread has been the corrections made by knowledgeable posters.

If you're doing it on purpose, wd40, well done! It's proving quite educational.

[wd40]

According to this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#History_of_cooking

"There is no clear evidence as to when cooking was invented. Primatologist Richard Wrangham stated that cooking was invented as far back as 1.8 million to 2.3 million years ago.[2] Other researchers believe that cooking was invented as late as 40,000 or 10,000 years ago."

So there is quite a difference of opinion as to when the main benefit to man of controlled fire -cooked food - actually occurred.

Control of fire by early humans
"Evidence for the controlled use of fire by Homo erectus beginning some 400,000 years ago have wide scholarly support, while claims regarding earlier evidence is mostly dismissed as inconclusive or sketchy.[3]"

[Jens]

What was the IQ of ancient man, and his immediate precursors?

I think it's likely that the intellectual capacity of a member of homo sapiens long ago was basically equivalent to that of a homo sapiens today. There simply isn't that much difference between the two.

[Shaula]

So there is quite a difference of opinion as to when the main benefit to man of controlled fire -cooked food - actually occurred.

Cooking food was a latecomer to the control of fire. Read up on the history of fire use - you'll see that evidence for the control of fire is pretty well established. Cooking was not the primary driver for it. The main benefits of fire included firing stone/clay artefacts, warmth (expanding potential homerange of humans), warding off predators, hunting with fire and so on. Cooking is on the list but it is false to say that this was the main benefit or that uncertainty in the age of cooking is related to an uncertainty in the dating of controlled fire use. It is also a bit like the evolutionary trap people fall into. Just because fire is mostly used for cooking in our minds does not in any way imply that this was what it was meant to be used for or what it was first used for.

[wd40]

According to this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imbecile

""Imbecile" was once applied to people with an IQ of 26-50, between "moron" (IQ of 51-70) and "idiot" (IQ of 0-25)."

I retract the terms "idiot, cretin, imbecile, retard, moron", as I see that they are no longer acceptable or appropriate to our ancestors or anyone else in modern psychology parlance.

[Strange]

What was the IQ of ancient man, and his immediate precursors?

It isn't clear what IQ tests measure. They are so culturally loaded, that it is hard to compare modern populations never mind people from the past.

Although he couldn't write, read, speak ...

What makes you think they couldn't speak? It is likely that speech predates Homo sapiens.

presumably an average homo sapiens of 250,000 years ago

Isn't that about 50 to 100000 years to early for H. sapiens?

Might it have been actually higher than today ie although he knew much less than us, he could make much more intelligent use of what little he had?

I can't see any reason to believe that.

More recently, might one say that eg the builders of the Great Pyramid had to have had IQs >140 to pull off such a novel complex structure, without any precedent or previous example to work on, and without any of our amenities?

What would account for a dramatic drop in IQ since the pyramids were built?

As others have noted, they were neither novel nor without precedent. And not that complex really (depending on your definition of complex, I suppose).

Of course, they did have some significant advantages compared to us for undertaking such a task.

Presumably for Homo Habilis, Homo Erectus etc the term "IQ" is not applicable

I'm not sure why. On the other hand, I don't know how meaningful it would be. Comparing IQs across species is probably even less meaningful than comparing between modern populations.

, and that Homo Neanderthalis was c90?

Is that anything other than a random guess? (And that's Homo neanderthalensis to you )

[BigDon]

Cooking food was a latecomer to the control of fire. Read up on the history of fire use - you'll see that evidence for the control of fire is pretty well established. Cooking was not the primary driver for it. The main benefits of fire included firing stone/clay artefacts, warmth (expanding potential homerange of humans), warding off predators, hunting with fire and so on. Cooking is on the list but it is false to say that this was the main benefit or that uncertainty in the age of cooking is related to an uncertainty in the dating of controlled fire use. It is also a bit like the evolutionary trap people fall into. Just because fire is mostly used for cooking in our minds does not in any way imply that this was what it was meant to be used for or what it was first used for.

Thanks Shaula.

I was going to say that light, warmth and not being eaten were the first drivers of controling fire.

People nowadays always, always, always, dismiss the importance of not being eaten during the night. Mainly because the main predators of humans for the last 2000 years or so have been other humans. And a big fire just draws them to you.

Guys! Rampaging elephants that have been flattening huts and people, so they're not playing around, can be driven off with a burning rag on a stick! I've seen it on film!

Then you have homotherium and pachycrocuta brevirostris. They didn't even need to be in a bad mood to ruin your day, just be "peckish".


You don't think that "dangerous animal repellent" wouldn't be picked up on right away by anyone who had to live with the darn things??

[captain swoop]

Some of the most stupid people I've ever met would score quite high on an IQ test.

I know a member of MENSA I wouldn't trust to boil a kettle.

[Ara Pacis]

I've heard that eating more protein, e.g. meat, lead to an increase in brain size and function. So, perhaps that meant their IQs were fairly high after meat was added to their diet.

Which makes me wonder about the intelligence of vegetarians, especially raw foodists. Eating beans might get a vegetarian enough protein, but that tends to require cooking.

[wd40]

US survivalists who fully expect, eat and breathe an "apocalypse" and a hiatus in the food supply, store up literally tons of beans and whole rice, as they have determined that apparently a human can subsist indefinitely solely on a diet consisting of whole rice and beans, which keep for years, together with a glass of milk per day!

Eating beans might get a vegetarian enough protein, but that tends to require cooking.

[LotusExcelle]

US survivalists who fully expect, eat and breathe an "apocalypse" and a hiatus in the food supply, store up literally tons of beans and whole rice, as they have determined that apparently a human can subsist indefinitely solely on a diet consisting of whole rice and beans, which keep for years, together with a glass of milk per day!

Where did you get this information?

[KABOOM]

Brain size (measured in cc volume) has actually shrunk by~ 10% over the past ~ 25K years and Neanderthals had even slightly larger brains than Cro Magnon man.

Not that brain size is 100% correlated with IQ

[HenrikOlsen]

I've heard that eating more protein, e.g. meat, lead to an increase in brain size and function. So, perhaps that meant their IQs were fairly high after meat was added to their diet.

Which makes me wonder about the intelligence of vegetarians, especially raw foodists. Eating beans might get a vegetarian enough protein, but that tends to require cooking.

Note that all beans, except horse beans, are poisonous without cooking. Raw foodists really shouldn't be eating beans at all and you'd be quite right in questioning their intelligence if they do.

Apart from that I expect that big brain thing is another fallacy in the same class as megadose vitamins, namely the fallacy of thinking that if lacking X means that Y becomes less than normal, then that must mean that excessive X means that Y becomes bigger than normal. Excess protein is burned for energy, not used for extra brain matter.

[HenrikOlsen]

Where did you get this information?

The same place he got that cows eat nothing but protein free grass and dinosaurs ate nothing but protein free flowers, that people die if they can't wash, that people die if they have to sleep on the ground and that people die if they're naked?

[Gillianren]

I've heard that eating more protein, e.g. meat, lead to an increase in brain size and function. So, perhaps that meant their IQs were fairly high after meat was added to their diet.

Don't underestimate the importance of fat, since your brain has a lot of it.

US survivalists who fully expect, eat and breathe an "apocalypse" and a hiatus in the food supply, store up literally tons of beans and whole rice, as they have determined that apparently a human can subsist indefinitely solely on a diet consisting of whole rice and beans, which keep for years, together with a glass of milk per day!

Where are they going to get the milk?

[Jim]

The same place he got that cows eat nothing but protein free grass and dinosaurs ate nothing but protein free flowers, that people die if they can't wash, that people die if they have to sleep on the ground and that people die if they're naked?

How about we keep this thread on its topic and discuss those other topics in their threads?

[Swift]

US survivalists who fully expect, eat and breathe an "apocalypse" and a hiatus in the food supply, store up literally tons of beans and whole rice, as they have determined that apparently a human can subsist indefinitely solely on a diet consisting of whole rice and beans, which keep for years, together with a glass of milk per day!

What exactly does this have to do with the IQ of ancient man? Are US survivalists different than those in other countries?

And are survivalists an example of high or low IQ?

[Ara Pacis]

Note that all beans, except horse beans, are poisonous without cooking. Raw foodists really shouldn't be eating beans at all and you'd be quite right in questioning their intelligence if they do.

I've heard that but I wasn't sure if it was strictly true. I thought I remembered reading that some beans are more and some are less and that soaking, even without cooking, can go a long way to getting rid of it. But I don't know.

Apart from that I expect that big brain thing is another fallacy in the same class as megadose vitamins, namely the fallacy of thinking that if lacking X means that Y becomes less than normal, then that must mean that excessive X means that Y becomes bigger than normal. Excess protein is burned for energy, not used for extra brain matter.

Not so much that X caused Y, just that more of X allowed an increase in Y to happen.

Eating meat led to smaller stomachs, bigger brains by Leslie Aiello, 2008

But two seminal ideas stand out, said Lieberman. One is that in evolutionary terms, big human brains — with enormous energy requirements — are inversely proportional to gut size.

This idea — called the Expensive Tissue Hypothesis (ETH) in Aiello’s co-authored 1992 paper — argues that around 1.5 million years ago early humans began to eat more meat, a compact, high-energy source of calories that does not require a large intestinal system.

A second seminal idea posited by Aiello and another colleague is that increased brain size meant higher reproductive costs for females — who, over time, compensated in part by increasing in size at a greater rate than males of the genus Homo.

[Ara Pacis]

Brain size (measured in cc volume) has actually shrunk by~ 10% over the past ~ 25K years and Neanderthals had even slightly larger brains than Cro Magnon man.

Not that brain size is 100% correlated with IQ

While looking around for my previous post, I found a line of logic that might be interesting. They suggest that body size had been growing larger as a trend in hominid species, including Neanderthals. Some suggest this was sexual selection for size. However, homo sapiens females selected not for strength but for something that required brain power. So, humans kept the brain and gave up the brawn.

Rambling road ro Humanity Corey S. Powell, 1997

The long, dry spell of constant brain size suggests to him that among our ancestors, as in modern apes, competition among males for access to females may have created an evolutionary pressure favoring continued large bodies. Behavior that was "more dependent on brawn than brains," Kappleman writes, evidently was successful enough that there was little evolutionary pressure toward a bigger cranium.

In considering the new reconstructions of Homo over the past 90,000 years, Kappelman is struck less by the roughly constant brain size than by the rapid decrease in body size, which runs quite counter to the earlier steady or upward trends. He suggests that this decrease in overall bulk was favored "by a social structure that relied on more cooperative foraging and better communication skills." At the same time, a better and more reliable food supply could support the metabolic demands of a large brain. "The increase in relative brain size of modern humans may then be, in part, an effect of selection for smaller body mass," Kappelman rather ignominiously concludes.

[djellison]

What was the IQ of ancient man, and his immediate precursors?

On average, 100. The IQ, at any time, is a bell-curve averaged on 100.

[Ronald Brak]

It may be the case that human beings were more intelligent on average 10,000 years ago than now, or at least more intelligent than 100 years ago. Generally hunter gatherers had better diets than pre-industrial agriculturalists and in the wild being smart is quite helpful for staying alive and so it was probably selected for strongly. The shift to agriculture resulted in poorer nutrition for the bulk of the population and frequent famines which can result in impaired mental development. Agriculture was probably less mentally demanding than hunting and gathering while exposing people to a great deal more disease. This would have resulted in less selection pressure on intelligence and more on disease resistance.

[Shaula]

There has been a lot of debate about the quality of diet for agricultural and hunter-gathers groups. Not sure it is clear just what a better diet means in this case. I've seen arguments that the seasonal nature of gathering meant that in terms of balanced diets, nutrients and so on, sedentary groups did better. Also agriculture is not less mentally demanding. It is not a case of "stick it in the ground and stuff grows". Farmers had to prepare the land, plant at the right time of year, make arrangements to store their surplus, trade their surplus, often prepare their food quite intensively, manage livestock and so on. Every argument I have seen says that agriculture requires far more social intelligence and boosted cultural development. So I very much doubt it would make people stupider. And in a few thousand years there really hasn't been time for such a weak selection pressure to have a large effect anyway.

[Jim]

The posts on beans, potatoes and such have been moved to http://www.bautforum.com/showthread....3746-Crop-Talk.

[jokergirl]

One interesting tidbit, though I would be hard-pressed to find the source now:

Archaeologists around middle Europe found evidence of musical instruments, e.g. flutes, in several different ancient human sites. Enough actually, that considering how sparse data we have for the time we can say that early humans were musical (because we would likely not even find a single one if musical instruments had not been widespread). Neanderthal settlements from the same time have yet to show such evidence.
That's actually pretty striking to me.