In part 1 of this series I examined the average brain size of Sapiens in the Middle Paleolithic (300 kya to 50 kya). In this article, I look at the Upper Paleolithic (50 kya to 12 kya) and once again I turn to DeSilva (2021) data-set ( considered the largest known data-set of directly measured ancient human crania)
The 115 specimens in this time period ranged from 1117 cc (Coobool creek, 14 kya) to 1775 cc (Grothes des infants 4, about 28 kya). The mean is 1459 (SD 143), vs 1452 (SD 129) in the Lower Paleolithic. Although it’s likely that brains got bigger as Sapiens left the tropics and headed North in the Upper Paleolithic, the observed difference here is not statistically significant.
Pumpkin Person 
Since every commenter here is an expert in Autism…
I feel like there is a conundrum in Autistic vs. neurotypical behavior that might help illuminate confusion on the topic.
The majority of autists suffer badly in life but some succeed wildly.
“High-functioning autism (HFA) is an autism classification where a person exhibits no intellectual disability, but may exhibit deficits in communication, emotion recognition and expression, and social interaction.”
Since autists hyperfocus on a particular interest with no regard for its social value, and often no extrinsic value at all, we can understand how that would basically make them unsuccessful.
If intellectual development is at all characterized by environmental interaction, than a focus on a particularly useless interest will incur no benefit socially, but also may have little cross-over benefit to other interests… meaning overall intellectual ability would not increase as much as a non-autist with obviously socially beneficial interests, or at least with less of a hyperfocus on one specific interest.
If there is a negative feedback loop characterized by an interest in an intellectual deadend, the autistic-brained child will develop an intellectual disability. On the other hand, if the opposite occurs, the autist might become brighter than their peers. So there is a coin flip or probability factor here. A high-risk, high-reward brain development selection strategy.
Specific intellectual activity that may be very strong in some children, but may come at the cost of socially acceptable behavior or comes with any other comorbid unhealthy habit/obsession and so either gets naturally reduced by the child’s own interaction with the world or by social pressure may also explain why there are sometimes children tested with IQs 10-30 points higher than their adult IQs.
Anyway this is something I think about sometimes and there are many associated specific questions concerning the high-risk, high-reward strategy of hyperfocus/autistic obsession in conjuction with feedback with the world, but one specifically I thought of today is:
If neurotypicals model behavior based on social cues, are they more likely to change behavior online than autists? But given that online activity is missing many social cues, where exactly would they get theirs from? Emojis and italic text? Recalled memories from watching other people use computers?
Basically in an environment with less social cues, how does an individual who values them act as opposed to an individual who doesn’t? I think in cases like these, we can see how autism could be a high-risk high-reward strategy but also how it isn’t always easy to tell who has more empathy. I suppose online interaction favors cognitive empathy over emotional empathy, so it might favor the autist.
>The majority of autists suffer badly in life but some succeed wildly
I honestly doubt this is much more than a feel good story. If they’re successful, they aren’t socially retarded. Otherwise they’d get fucked over since money is money regardless of how it’s gained, ethics be damned. You’re more likely to see an autistic have the same possibly successful idea as someone else but too worried about it being perfectly implemented, and will be overshadowed by someone who just shat out a viable product, or just have all their work claimed by someone more socially intelligent than them.
>why there are sometimes children tested with IQs 10-30 points higher than their adult IQs
They probably just developed faster than other of the same age group. Once they’ve reached adulthood they wouldn’t have the same advantage, like how baby chimps can be smarter than baby humans up to a certain age. And the more variables we use to measure human intelligence the more accurate a guess would be since what’s being looked for is both how capable someone is at crystalizing knowledge and how capable he is at solving novel problems. Extreme expertise in one particular subject != general intellectual ability, although it does correlate with general intellectual ability.
An insect doesn’t have g, it’s just a program without any ability to solve problems not built into it. It can be very good at this, but it’s still infinitely retarded. Although bees can be pretty smart. I can’t find the original video I saw this from, which explained it better and showed more tests, but whatever.
Also, it wouldn’t explain why this would happen with people without autism.
>the autistic-brained child will develop an intellectual disability
I think you’re not being conceptually coherent. They can’t at the same time benefit in terms of IQ from intense focus on one particular subject and develop an intellectual disability because of it, unless you mean the intellectual disability is a culturally determined one, i.e. it’s not a real one.
>Basically in an environment with less social cues
I think this is looking at the question from the bare faced behavioral representation of how neurotypicals act. Neurotypicals believe they’re able to predict the state of minds of other people by looking at their behavior, this combined with a theory of mind, or rather just the projection of their own sensual and intellectual experiences onto others, they’re capable of acting and thinking about social problems despite there not being sufficient evidence to reach reasonable conclusions. They’ll still act as if their made up version of reality is literally real. Neurotypicals are fundamentally superstitious, they’re religious animals. Their ability to find the aspects of reality that are most useful, or their ability to find the variables that best predict their experiences, is what separates them from autistics.
Things don’t have to be literally real and logical, they just have to be literally predictive.
What I mean is that social cues don’t literally exist but their ability to nonetheless find them is built from their life long learned ability to predict the implied mental states of others, and they’re able to do this because they’re good at metacognition. If there are less social cues they’ll find something else that could be used to accurately gauge it, or just rely on things that are still present and equally viable. If you interact with brazenly obvious autistics online you’ll immediately see it, they don’t realize they’re being ridiculed if they are and will continue to act in the way they’ve always acted regardless of the situation. They just don’t notice, or if they do, they can’t adapt, because they don’t care, or because they don’t see why it’s logical to, or because they just can’t even if they’re upset.
Although this is all my own conceptions since as a kid I thought the idea of people knowing my emotional state to be laughable and retarded. They don’t exist in my head and I don’t exist in theirs, they literally can’t know it, yet they still believe they do. I realize that was just me being autistic, not every situation is a novel one and there are some problems that repeat themselves across time that I CAN solve. I still prefer looking at things from a blank state as best as I can since expectations often betray reality.
I do better online because I can think of how to reply to someone for hours or even days and months depending on the medium.
“You’re more likely to see an autistic have the same possibly successful idea as someone else but too worried about it being perfectly implemented, and will be overshadowed by someone who just shat out a viable product, or just have all their work claimed by someone more socially intelligent than them.”
Right, I do think such happens usually, but I suppose you’re thinking about Autism more as an end, and something that tautologically prevents a person from being successful. I’m thinking more about the genes or risk factors that might lead a child to being autistic, but that in some cases might lead to a high functioning autist or a successful but to some degree socially atypical individual. Given that there can be a certain innocence in the autistic theory of mind, I don’t think it would hurt the autist’s relationships in all cases. Or their technical ability could make up for their social shortcomings.
We can’t assume that autism will apriori make someone unsuccessful in life. It doesn’t explain why autistic traits would exist in the population in the first place, just like schizo traits exist in some more than others despite schizophrenia obviously being a negative.
“Extreme expertise in one particular subject != general intellectual ability, although it does correlate with general intellectual ability.”
That’s why I mentioned feedback loops. In general, I don’t think G or IQ can be increased, but really, it seems to be more of an inductive truth about not really being able to change our brain function overall. However, I don’t think there is anything ruling out particular habits and interests as not being able to alter our IQ to some extent especially during childhood.
“Also, it wouldn’t explain why this would happen with people without autism.”
Well there are a lot of possible factors involved, I’m just talking about some specific isolated ones. I just want to know what rules such possibilities out, if they are ruled out.
“They can’t at the same time benefit in terms of IQ from intense focus on one particular subject and develop an intellectual disability because of it, unless you mean the intellectual disability is a culturally determined one, i.e. it’s not a real one.”
I’m saying their are interests that could benefit one’s intellect and ones that don’t. For example some people in an earlier blog post were stating Trump might be on the autist spectrum because of his family and certain habits, but if he had a particular interest in the social world (which he clearly does) he might continue to pick up on social cues and develop normally in ways another autist who didn’t would. That’s what I’m referring to, areas where are theories about autism vs. neurotypicism seem to come into contact or self-reference. It’s kind of like a self-referential paradox… If autism is characterized by a lack of social understanding or empathy, and an autist happens to develop an interest in human social cues, what happens?
As for the rest of your post, thank you for those detailed thoughts. I’ll try to digest them slowly.
>Given that there can be a certain innocence in the autistic theory of mind, I don’t think it would hurt the autist’s relationships in all cases. Or their technical ability could make up for their social shortcomings.
It doesn’t, I’m being hyperbolic. An autist could just be dumb and not have any technical ability worth speaking about (or he’s not able to speak about).
The broadly autistic phenotype was probably selected within K-selecting environments because it’s energetically cheaper to shift a person’s focus on confined, but socially valuable, skills and knowledge, than it is to just increase his IQ, if such skills were vital for survival. I’m also just making this up, I don’t know. Sounds reasonable. pp has written a lot about the autism:schizophrenia dichotomy and you’ll probably find something interesting on this blog if you search for it.
>I don’t think there is anything ruling out particular habits and interests as not being able to alter our IQ to some extent especially during childhood
Negatively affecting someone’s IQ is really easy. Just give him a concussion. Works regardless of age. Putting a child in an intellectually stimulating environment also increases his IQ, relative to if he were raised by wolves or some talking shiny brick. Since the flynn effect does exist, we know this is very likely true.
>I just want to know what rules such possibilities out, if they are ruled out.
I see no reason to rule it out.
>If autism is characterized by a lack of social understanding or empathy, and an autist happens to develop an interest in human social cues, what happens
If the autism isn’t related to brain damage during very early development, I find the idea of there being any cure extremely unlikely. If we’re speaking about particular cases, I know some aspies who are socially functional by virtue of their extreme intelligence, although they still nonetheless prefer not to talk to neurotypicals (“I think the buddhists are right when they say autists are closer to god than most people” t. aspie). I don’t know what to say in regards to generalizations, other than they’ll probably suck at it.
Its called mind reading and you don’t have it. Non-autists dont rely on what people say or type solely. Are you able to tell when someone is lying or being sarcastic? Autists can’t tell it in real life and its actually even worse online when theres just text.
Also this explanation you’ve provided where IQ drops into adulthood isn’t because of a ‘coin flip’ specialization gone wrong. Frankly whether you’re obsessed with train timetables or statistical textbooks when youre a younger autist isn’t going to really make a difference to your adult IQ either way.
The real problem is that IQ testing children is very inaccurate and the instruments we have are not reliable at this current point in time.
I mean, I do believe intelligence is pretty stable, even as a child, and it’s true that childhood IQ tests are unreliable. But that doesn’t rule out the gist of what I’m saying, which is that a particular interest can influence the rest of your cognition, and your autistic, your interests are stronger in very specific areas and less prone to social pressure. And when you’re a child, your development depends a lot more on environment pressures than an adult.
Biscuit
Youre basically saying mind reading doesn’t exist. It actually does exist. Youre argument is basically ‘because I don’t have it, nobody else could possibly have it’.
When I was in school I sat beside a guy who couldn’t see the colour red or green. I was shocked when he told me. But the guy didn’t then go on to say that ‘red’ and ‘green’ were social constructions or don’t exist. I believe this is a good analogy.
Also the kind of hilarious thing about autists is that there is nothing really going on in autists brains actually. Its very easy to read.
You’re not wrong.
^^schizoprenia^^
what biscuit said was that neurotypicals have is religious awareness.
both of you are wrong the middle is neutral neither blindness nor extra precautionary.
>what biscuit said was that neurotypicals have is religious awareness
I mean something closer to the difference attempting to memorize as much of the addition table as a person possibly could without dying of old age, and someone who just figured out how to do basic arithmetic. In this hypothetical, an autistic is someone who memorizes, a neurotypical is someone who simplifies the problem down to the essence of the problem.
Same comment as before: This is the only source to mention both Barma Grande and Grimaldi and mention that the latter has a greater cranial capacity than the former. Generally Barma Grande is references as 1880cc.
Additionally: I have a list of stone age skulls, but it doesn’t have cranial capacity. It has head length breadth and height. I got rid of skulls without dates and subadults. Then I sorted it by time and found that length and width were greater before the 20000 BP line, though the height was lower. Although my sources of error include a relatively low number of pre-20000 BP skulls in comparison to post 20000 BP stone age skulls and no sex labels.
I can post the average values if you want as well as a link for downloading the original with the full list that contains subadults and skulls without dates if you want pp.
I can post the values now. Pre-20,000 BP values: L = 194.2 mm, B = 139.727 mm, H = 135.9 mm.
Post-20,000 BP values (stone age only): L = 186 mm, B = 138 mm, H = 138 mm.
All values are sex-combined from stone age Europe.
I would replace the last two PATMA items with probability questions which can be readily solved with high school algebra. That would still put some people at an educational advantage, but I think it would provide more than enough opportunity for intelligent but relatively uneducated people to solve them.
I am posting these figures on this one, too, because it is relevant and this is the newer post.
East Asia: Mean= 1381 SD=158
Europe: Mean= 1471 SD=125
Southeast Asia(mainly aboriginals) Mean= 1408 SD= 115
MENA: Mean= 1542 SD=170
Caucasoids in general: =1490 SD= 170
All Upper Paleolithic Skulls: Mean=1458 SD=143
I did not include the Hofmeyr skull in my figures which probably explains why your average is one point higher than mine. It seems Mugabe is correct for once about European brain “superiority,” but it should be noted that the Minatogawa skulls drag the East Asian average down considerably. Without that set, the average is 1433 with an SD of 142
To be fair, though, I’m skeptical of this data set. It has me concerned with all the spelling errors (Grotte des infants instead of enfants) and some weird estimates like Cromagnon 1 being 1730 instead of 1600.
Either way, I’ll post figures for Neanderthals soon.
Excellent work!
It seems Mugabe is correct for once about European brain “superiority,” but it should be noted that the Minatogawa skulls drag the East Asian average down considerably.
Rushton has stated that East Asian brain size superiority sometimes doesn’t show until you adjust for body size. Curiously, in his army data, East Asians also have larger absolute crania, but the superiority is driven entirely by women.
That’s interesting. If I had to make an educated guess, I would say that is probably due to a combination of East Asians lower levels of sexual dimorphism and sexual selection for paedomorphic traits on East Asian women.
I really don’t believe East Asian women are measurably smarter than men, because you don’t see any evidence of it. Seems like a measurement error and/or bad sample size. Or if they have bigger brains but are not more intelligent, it would suppose a random extra gene that increases brain size without increasing intelligence, further separating them from other races, in addition to the sexual dimorphic brain size. Seems like an unnecessary variable.
Also, I have great suspicion about Chinese IQ. I believe Japanese IQ and perhaps Korean IQ approaches 110. But China is way too large, and borders countries with sub 100 IQs. It doesn’t seem likely that Chinese IQ is as homogeneous as Japanese IQ for example. Just like Indian IQ apparently varies quite a bit from each caste. I would guess national average Chinese IQ is closer to 100. Given how they have 1.4 billion people yet can’t seem to create anything worthwhile while Japan and Korea have less than 10% of that and seem to make creating cultural phenomena look like a breeze in comparison. There’s got to be a genetic component IMO, it can’t all be the arbitrary results of communism and totalitarianism (though a population easily succumbable to such may have genetic reasons for that)
I agree with Lurker.
Maybe the East asians aren’t that homogenous. To be fair, whites aren’t that homogenous either I suppose.
I keep telling Puppy about the Mongols and he just dismisses it or pretends they don’t exist.
The internet requires cognitive flexibility above all so autists might be limited in their ability to make productive use of novelizing developments which rather benefit those who put in authentic character portrayal alongside structured support for premises of arguments they intend to provide!
Charismatic people on the internet excluding those using social media and rather primarily relying on written word are those who want to place importance on reliably relating their points of views without fluctuating formulations and instead on relaying information using coherent organizational conveyances!
There mustnt be too much occupation with providing legitimate relationships between things but definitely a consumptive attitude to clinching important demonstrations of actions through ones writings and then applying them righteously to harbor a feeling of security in an audience.
LOADED does this best!
Well it’s definitely an interesting point that one can value the truth more than social appearances, and in doing so, appear to be emotionally distant. But what is really happening is they value something more than displaying emotional empathy at that moment.
It’s also possible to be somewhat low in empathy but very keen to abstractions, and so to appear “enlightened” and emotionally distant from the common occurences of daily life. Autists are typically concrete, so one obsessed with abstraction or analogy, or “meta-thought” (trying to break out of common-sense paradigms) might appear less autistic than they are. And perhaps they might actually be literally less autistic as a result of that interest…
Yes I am emotionally distant but keen to abstractions its not necessarily a description of autists but rather people who emphasize perfectionism in their daily lives!
Autists might be perfectionist in certain ways but not in others im a rare neurotypical who embodies this variety of lifestyle and values.
The answer lies. Not in truth but it lies in general. Lying is unique to the individual because it is the greatest form of abstraction humans can perceive of! 🙂
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Figures for Archaic species.
Neanderthals: Mean= 1386 SD= 171
Heidelbergensis: Mean= 1241 SD= 149
Erectus: Mean= 941 SD= 213
If you consider Heidelbergensis and Erectus as the same species then Mean= 1045 SD= 233
Neanderthals are smaller than I imagined, meaning John Hawks was correct. I almost got rid of the La Quina 18 specimen because it belongs to an 8-year-old child. However, I remembered that Neanderthals mature faster than Homo Sapiens, and an 8-year-old Neanderthal is developmentally equivalent to a 10 to 12-year-old Homo Sapien. Homo sapiens brains reach adult size around 8-10, so I realized it probably didn’t matter.
So, after reviewing some of this data a little bit more, I’m not convinced of its legitimacy. Xuchang man is counted as Erectus from 100 thousand years ago and shares many cranial features with contemporary Neanderthals. I’m going to sift through this more in-depth, which will probably take some time. In the meantime, though, I want to clarify that everyone should take these figures from Archaic species with a grain of salt. The Neanderthal numbers are probably more accurate, but Erectus and Heidelbergensis are highly controversial classifications, and it seems like there are not many consensuses on what specimens belong to which group.
Here’s a study that goes deeper on the messy bullshit that encapsulates hominin taxonomy: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.24330
RR, you’d definitely enjoy this article. It points out the hypocrisy behind Anthropology’s avoidance of typological taxonomy in modern populations (Race and Ethnicity) while overzealously embracing the methodology for extinct ones.
Do you believe in HBD or not Melo? Do you believe jews are smart and blacks are dumb?
Yes Hawks was correct that Neanderthals are smaller brained than Upper Paleolithic Sapiens, and also smaller than humans today.
Still I thought they’d be well above 1400. Yours is the lowest estimate I’ve ever seen for Neanderthal brain size. And this is before we adjust for their massive bulk.
It’s frustrating that so many people think Neanderthals had bigger brains that Sapiens. That perception is entirely based on comparing them to pre-war Holocene Sapiens, and ignoring how much bigger our brains measure both before and after that era.
If people knew the truth, the Neanderthal extinction would not be such a mystery.
Pumpkin when will you comment your thoughts on artificial intelligence? Such an important topic!
Right now AI actually has an IQ equivalent to 50 when compared with humans! That was in 2016 though.
This article https://www.einnews.com/amp/pr_news/551686609/ai-is-outperforming-humans-in-both-iq-and-creativity-in-2021
claims AI is smarter and more creative than humans!
Wow!
We have AI in the comment section. His name is Bruno.
I don’t think we’re close at all to creating intelligent machines. AI still solves problems in the same robotic way, it just does so with more speed and processing power. But there’s no consciousness, no meta-awareness, no analogical ability & this prevents AI from mastering even the simplest of tasks like driving a car.