According to scholar Richard G. Klein, if you took someone from Africa 80,000 years ago and dressed them up in modern clothes and had them walk into a university lecture hall, the only thing we would notice is that the person was extraordinarily well built (see 10:50 in video below):
But behind the normal appearance would lurk an incredibly primitive mind. For according to Klein, before about 50,000 years, the freak mutation causing behavioral modernity had not yet occurred, even though anatomical modernity evolved 200,000 years ago.
According to Klein all peoples today are behaviorally modern. That means that if HBD is correct, and Bushmen and pygmies have genetic IQs no higher than 70, then the Africans before 50,000 years ago must have been lower still.
How much lower?
In my last post, I estimated that homo erectus, who lived from 1.9 million years ago to 70,000 years ago, had an average IQ of 29. Meanwhile anatomically modern humans appeared 200,000 years ago.
According to geneticist Spencer Wells, from 1 million years ago, to 65,000 years, there was virtually no cultural or technological progress, so big brained anatomically modern humans were still behaving like IQ 29 Homo erectus for 135,000 years!
What were the IQs of these people? They must have been much smarter than tiny brained Homo erectus (IQ 29) but not as high as today’s Bushmen and pygmies (genetic IQ at least 70) who have made the leap to behavioral modernity. Let’s split the difference and assume they had an IQ of 50.
So for 135,000 years, Africa was inhabited by IQ 50 people who looked just like modern big brained Africans, yet were behaving like tiny brained Erectus, making the same simple one million year-old stone tools over and over again like mindless zombies for 135,000 years, until finally a genetic mutation snapped them out of their trance, and made them behaviorally modern.
It must have been an incredibly terrifying time if we could see it, because everyone would have looked like fully modern black Africans, yet would have had the mind of animals.
Pumpkin Person 
My god pumpkin what is this?
Being skeptical is an important part of science but lately it seems you’re taking one scientist’s word as the only word, and ignoring any counter evidence presented by other users and I.
I think any IQ estimate you make of non homo sapiens is honesty complete bullshit.
Potential is not the same as performance. Anthropology is not physics you can’t take all empirical data at face value. If we used your same logic we have to deduce that language didn’t appear until a few thousand years ago, and im pretty sure you and I both know how preposterous that is.
As afro sapiens pointed out, europe has better conditions for fossilization as well. Unfortunately anthropology is a little more subjective and variable than the math you’re used to pumpkin.
“So for 135,000 years, Africa was inhabited by IQ 50 people who looked just like modern big brained Africans, yet were behaving like tiny brained Erectus, making the same simple one million year-old stone tools over and over again like mindless zombies for 135,000 years”
Serious question – what would happen if sub saharan Africa was completely isolated from the world.
Would they have discovered the wheel?
What would happen oi all places were isolated? Who would have discovered the wheel or created a written language?
Didn’t you say the other day that the Maya were isolated and still invented writings. The Inca had a pension system forchrisakes. What the hell did Africa have?
Yea the Maya did a lot. I’m really interested in Mesoamerica since they did a ton of things genetically and culturally isolated. Astronomy, math, the concept of “0”, agriculture, etc.
I’m not well versed on African history, maybe chikoka, jm8 or Afrosapiens can chime in here.
The amerindians are a strange bunch. The human sacrifices, garland warfare (like in Africa) and penis size indicate high testosterone. The pension systems,accountancy, advanced agriculture and architecture/art indicate high IQ for a completely isolated race of man.
Its definitely an anthropologist/historian wet dream to study them more. Most of them died off with chicken pox, slavery, conquest, pests and other Western things.
Hugo Chavez is a very amerindian looking fellow. Great guy chavez. Big fan.
A few things regarding some parts of Africa (mostly re: West African specifically):
City states, chiefdoms, and kingdoms were not uncommon and began to from from arround 1,000-1500 bc 2000 in some places—sometimes/othere later as well i.e. late antiquity-medieval— (the roots of them likely earlier in cultures such as the Nok culture (knowns for its—often—hollow terracottas of various sizes) of Central Nigeria and Dhar tichitt), often concentrating arround Ghana, Mali parts of Cameroon (esp. the grasslands area the kingdoms of the Bamileke, Bamoum, Bafut, and Bafut), and Nigeria (Ashanti, the Yoruba city states of Ijebu—the site of the early Yoruba fortification, Sungo’s Eredo—, Owo, and Ife, the kingdom of Benin of the Edo/Bini people, the Hausa and Kanuri states which have ancient roots in the Gajinanna culture of the Chad basin, the early polities of the Igbo—many of these cultures known for their high quality court arts and ancient earthen city walls and moats and beginning arround the early-mid Middle ages, but often with more ancent roots), the early polities of the Mali/Senegal region (pre Islam)—staring with the stone-walled chiefdoms of Dhar Tichitt S.E Mauritania (then inhabited by black Mande/Soninke speaking agropastoralists and prior to the migrations of Berbers centuries later), the city states of the niger river such as Jenne Jeno and Dia Shoma (known by archaeologists for their terracottas as well which would later form part of the foundation of the Empires of Ghana and Mali.
A system of ideographic writing (similar in principle to Chinese) developed in the southeast corner of Nigeria, at least by 400 ad, but possibly earlier (There has tended to be less archaeological research in Africa than in many other regions—up till now) called Nsibidi. It may have started among the (ancestral) Ejagham or Efik, but spread to other groups in the region, including some nearby Igbo subgroups (and many other neighboring tribes there and immediate parts of Cameroon).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsibidi
“Iconography and Continuity in West Africa: Calabar Terracottas and the Arts of the Cross River Region of Nigeria/Cameroon (PDF)”
http://www.kingdomofbenin.com/the-benin-moat.html
http://historum.com/middle-eastern-african-history/58840-diversity-early-african-architecture-ruins-thread-2.html
http://www.forumbiodiversity.com/showthread.php/40992-African-art-amp-architecture-in-pre-colonial-times
There is evidence of an independant invention of iron metallurgy (probably centrered arround Nigeria)
Very recent research at Nsukka in Igboland finds very early dates or ca. 2000 BC.
http://www.academia.edu/4103707/Iron_and_its_influence_on_the_prehistoric_site_of_Lejja
The scholars studying the Nok culture of central Nigeria (most recently, in the last few years), Peter Breunig and his German research team, believe its iron metallurgy is part of an independant local tradition. Its oldest confirmed iron dates are about 500-700 bc. The culture itself goes back to about 1500-1200 bc and older iron dates (by several centuries in that specific region of Nigeria) )are suspected by Breunig based on indirect evidence but not yet confirmed.
(some of the most reports/articles are a bit obscure— some information initially only in German— but much can be searchedonline)
https://books.google.com/books?id=BBn1BQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=Nok+culture+context&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjr84mK4vbNAhVFpB4KHe2qB1cQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Nok%20culture%20context&f=false
Dates from some Central African sites begin by about 800 bc (the Gabon and the Uganda regions I think), but I think these may still be inconclusive/controversial.
There were also smaller polities in parts of Central Africa (Kongo, Kuba). In East Central Africa specifically (Buganda, Rwanda, Buhaya), the metallurgy by the Urewe period of the Uganda region (the urewe are the early eastern Bantu, ancestral to many bantu speaking cultures of South and East Africa, having derived from the proto-Bantu originating arround the Congo) was relatively advanced. Steel was created in Western Tanzania (near Uganda) arround 300-100 bc.
(work of Peter R. Schmidt)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haya_people#Archeological_discoveries
The above in response to:
“I’m not well versed on African history, maybe chikoka, jm8 or Afrosapiens can chime in here.”
I thought I’d chime in.
Edit: “…and Kanuri states which have ancient roots in the Gajinanna/Zilum and Sao cultures of the Chad basin…”
and re: the art of the Nok (more recently related—eg Peter Breunig—redated to 1500 bc at its eariest phase-ca. 200 ad at its latest):
https://www.amazon.com/Nok-Culture-Nigeria-2500-Years/dp/3791336460
cont:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nok_culture
Another good example of Nok art is Afrosapiens’ avatar (the head of a statue).
or these (though some were full body, often about full sized)
http://www.beprimitive.com/stories-descriptions/nok-terra-cotta
If Homo Erectus had the mind of a 7 years old as an adult at IQ 29 and humans 135,000 years ago were IQ 50, Wouldn’t it be more likely to say rather than behaving like animals as you say, humans 135,000 years ago acted more like 12 years olds as adults?
Melo is right, you can’t get so excited and and obsessed by random theories and assumptions like that. You should rather subscribe to a few scientific journals in each HBD related fields and stay in touch with ongoing developments and debates.
I’m going to subscribe to a few journals. No idea which ones yet.
And you wouldn’t need to return as far back as the paleolithic and as far away as Africa. Victorian cities were the ultimate nightmare made of filth, disease and crime.
The idea that there was no progress for a million years, followed by a sudden jump some tens of thousands of years ago is very dubious–shouldn’t be taken too seriously.
All laces on earth with humans were terrifying that long ago. Contrary to the noble savage myth, hunter-gatherers were extremely violent.
Read Better Angels of Our Nature.
And the first signs of behavioral modernity were seen in erectus and his control of fire. See Azevedo and Herculano-Houzel (2011).
This limitation was probably overcome in Homo erectus with the shift to a cooked diet. Absent the requirement to spend most available hours of the day feeding, the combination of newly freed time and a large number of brain neurons affordable on a cooked diet may thus have been a major positive driving force to the rapid increased in brain size in human evolution.
http://m.pnas.org/content/109/45/18571.full
Wouldn’t you say that’s modern behavior? Moreover, this genetic change you’re talking about I’m sure has to do with the DDR4 and alleles. That’s what you’re missing.
This article reports an association between the variation of dopamine D4 receptor (DRD4) allele frequencies around the globe and population migration patterns in prehistoric times. After compiling existing data on DRD4 allele frequencies of 2,320 individuals from 39 populations and on the migration pattern of these groups, we found that, compared to sedentary populations, migratory populations showed a higher proportion of long alleles for DRD4. The correlation between macro-migration (long-distance group migration) and the proportion of long alleles of DRD4 was .85 (p < .001), and that between micro-migration (sedentary vs. nomadic settlement) and the proportion of long alleles was .52 (p = .001). We discussed the adaptive value of long alleles of DRD4—a genetic trait that has been linked in some studies to the personality trait of novelty-seeking and to hyperactivity— in migratory societies and the possibility of natural selection for a migration gene.
http://www.ehbonline.org/article/S1090-5138%2899%2900015-X/abstract
PP ive lost all respect for you…..why should the mutation be “freak”…and not selected for? i suppose the advance to hominid status was freak too ans so was the advance from homo habilis to homo erectus…and so was the advance from homo erectus to anatomicaly modern humans…..OCCAMS RAZOR for christs sake…and you keep avoiding explaining why europeans couldnt halve or double 20 000 years ago…
and the fact tha ALL hominids evolved in africa as well as the two most intelligent creatures after humans except for denosivans and neanderthals both who evolved from modern looking people into more and more primitive ones in a Cold environment……do you like elastic bands?
PP ive lost all respect for you…..why should the mutation be “freak”…and not selected for?
It was a freak mutation because it was the kind of radical brain change that happens only once every several hundred thousand years or less. And of course it was selected for, which is why all peoples today have it.
and you keep avoiding explaining why europeans couldnt halve or double 20 000 years ago…
Based on the other skills they had by that time, I’m sure they could, they just didn’t leave any archeological evidence for it because engraving your math work is a very rare thing to do.
other skills like what? what can compare to thinking in two bases…base 10 and base 12 and discovering prime numbers…thats also the minimum …more work was possibly done if we had access to it…..yes what european artifacts compare to that?
what can compare to thinking in two bases…base 10 and base 12 and discovering prime numbers…
Let’s not get carried away. It’s a bone with some line marks that double and halve.
this work is listed as the begginings of mathematics….
Should also speak about the mathematics of the Maya. I think an IQ estimate by pumpkin on the Maya is a good article for him. They did tons, as I keep saying, while isolated.
Eventually pumpkin will get over his cognitive dissonance. I dont think ive ever seen one of his theories so universally critisized by users here before.
Melo, tbh it’s much easier for me to change my mind when I read something on my own.
It helps for me to look at things at different angles. When I changed my mind about HBD i just took it’s theories assumed them true and then did a comparative analysis against anthropological data.
Helped me discern the bullshit form the real
Its NOT just a bone with some markings that double and halve….read the full article you linked me to in google books…why do ALL schollars acknowledge what i wrote about prime numbers and stuff..EVEN THE ONES YOU GIVE LINKS TO….but you know better.
i quote your link
======
Even more striking is that the numbers in one collumn are all odd(9,11,13,17,19 and 21). One collumn contains the prime numbers between 10 and 20, and numbers in each collumn sum to either 48 or 60, both multiples of 12.
======
Another part says
====
Even if the ishango was a simple bookkeeping device,these tallys seem to set us apart from animals and represent the****FIRST**** STEPS TO SYMBOLIC MATHEMATICS.
======
The ishango outshines ALL “acheivemnts” made by any other group of hominids that were contemporary with the african at that time.
ANOTHER example of where africans were WAY ahead of their contemporaries was mining
http://www.miningweekly.com/print-version/the-dawn-of-mining-2012-02-10
qoute
===
The earliest evidenceofman’sminingactivities–miningbeingdefined
as the removalofminerals fromtheirnaturalgeologic environment and
their transportationtothepointofprocessingoruse–datesbacktothe
MiddleStoneAge, roughly41000to43000years ago.
Itisbelievedthat,duringthisperiod,primitivemen, atleastinSouthern
Africa,became acquaintedwithminerals suchashematite, specularite,
andpyrolusite
===
This is far more advanced than anything europeans were doing
Check out this interesting paper.
Click to access 10.1007%40s10699-008-9153-8.pdf
Niche construction is the process whereby organisms modify their own and/or each others’ niches, through their metabolism, their activities, and their choices. For instance, numerous animals manufacture nests, burrows, holes, webs and pupal cases; plants change levels of atmospheric gases and modify nutrient cycles; fungi and bacteria decompose organic matter; bacteria fix nutrients (see Odling-Smee et al. 2003, for a review of this literature). However, the defining characteristic of niche construction is not organism-driven modification of the environment per se, but rather the modification of the relationship between an organism and its relative niche (Odling-Smee 1988).
[…]
Advocates of niche-construction are concerned with the causal basis of the organism–environment match and its inherent symmetries, and the active role that organisms play in driving evolutionary and co-evolutionary events. They seek to explain the adaptive complementarity of organism and environment in terms of dynamic, reciprocal interactions between the processes of natural selection and niche construction. Evolution thus entails networks of causation and feedback in which previously selected organisms drive environmental changes, and organism-modified environments subsequently select for changes in organisms.
It brings up a good example in West African yam cultivators who clear the forest to plant crops. It increased the amount of water which increased mosquitoes and the chance to get malaria. Selection then favored the hemoglobin S allele, which protects against malaria. Another example they bring up is that there is “no gene ”for” dairy farming”.
Dairy farming is apparently an instance of human cultural niche construction that is mediated by cultural processes. There are no genes for dairy farming (using “genes for” in the sense of Dawkins 1976). Genes do not constitute the appropriate level of analysis to explain why individuals in some societies farm cattle and others do not—
this is a cultural phenomenon. Yet in spite of the fact that dairy farming is not caused by
genes and is not a product of natural selection, it has clearly had evolutionary consequences. Recent findings of mutations that allow lactase persistence in some non-dairying African groups does not fundamentally change this logic (Tishkoff et al. 2006).
Thoughts? Lends credence to your intelligence definition in a way, in my opinion. It’s called ‘niche construction’.
If modern humans have brains that are wired more efficiently than the first anatomically modern ones, wouldn’t that lead us to overstate brain size based correlation predictions of non-sapiens IQ’s?
It also implies that those comparisons between modern races could be flawed in a similar way. Perhaps there was another mutation in some small cranium-ed race that was selected for ahead of larger size because of environmental factors such as diet. This could possibly explain why some races could double and halve while others could not just 25000 years ago
“Perhaps there was another mutation in some small cranium-ed race that was selected for ahead of larger size because of environmental factors such as diet”
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/10/25/the-final-nail-in-the-coffin-for-more-evolved-and-progressive-evolution-1/
^^^^
Perfect example. This is what you’re looking for. Also see:
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2016/12/31/progress-in-hominin-brain-evolution/
I meant there was a brain mutation that caused faster processing in the smaller headed race that the larger headed race did not have. And you graph is blatantly misleading. the number of people in the black group are fewer than the number of people in the white group. That is why the surface area of the black shaded area is smaller. This was diliberately done to suggest that the peak of the graph represented the peak of IQ when The IQ measurements are on the horizobtal axis. The peak measures the number of people but you make it look like it signify’s the limit of iQ.
Oh and acording to PP , whites and asians coudnt double and halve 25000 years ago while blacks could
If modern humans have brains that are wired more efficiently than the first anatomically modern ones, wouldn’t that lead us to overstate brain size based correlation predictions of non-sapiens IQ’s?
It would suggest that even controlling for brain size, pre-humans would be less intelligent than modern humans on average.
Right, which suggests that there is another variable besides brain size, “brain efficiency”, that is almost certainly higher in modern humans than in pre-sapient species. That would suggest that attempts to predict erectus or chimpanzee IQ’s with linear regression from modern brains would lead to overpredictions.
^ ack! Sorry, I misinterpreted your reply; that’s exactly what you said lol.
and perhaps even the larger headed exampls of the early humans would be less intelligent than the smaller headed modern ones. So why cant that be true with large headed and small eaded races?