In the third edition of this series, I use the DeSilva (2021) data-set explore human brain size from 11,700 years ago to about the first World War. The data-set has 704 crania in this period and these range from 907 cc (Morton specimen from the early 20th century) to 1,859 cc (Bristol 2 specimen from about 750 years ago).
The total sample in this era has a mean of 1324 cc with an SD of 156. This is a major reduction from the 1459 cc mean found in the Upper Paleolithic so I must side with those scientists who say the brain has shrunk since the ice age (at least phenotypically).
Why did the brain suddenly start shrinking after 4 million years of growth?
The most obvious reason is malnutrition. The transition from hunters to farmers damaged our height, health and life span, so why not our brain size (and intelligence) too? But the good news is these declines reflect our phenotypic plasticity. The fact that we still have the genetic potential to be tall, smart and big brained is proven by the speed with which these traits have come roaring back with the advent of 20th century nutrition. Indeed my analysis of 21st century military records suggests that at least in America, brain size has reached 1418 cc. This is almost as big as our Paleolithic ancestors and what little shortfall exists, can probably be explained by us being more genetically gracile than our muscle bound stone age forerunners who needed those extra 40 cc to coordinate their ample bulk. It’s well known that brain size better predicts intelligence when body size is adjusted for.
Pumpkin Person 
Would you say spatial intelligence correlates well with brain size? Asians are exceedingly intelligent in spatial and numerical categories but lag behind in verbal.
Everyone who believes in HBD should know this very crucial fact to correctly assess the situation of our world at this very moment!
Im going to buy Madden 23! My record completing Madden 22 was 160-141!
Thats pretty damn good considering im a nerdy sort of dude and most guys playing are brutes thriving with that sort of game play!
how do “we” know that a negro didn’t heave a watermelon in the air and it hit jfk’s head?
conspiracy theories are always most dense around (actually or fake) SHOCKING and possibly important events. the SHOCK is first. but if it’s not even possibly important…no conspiracy theories.
jfk was killed by oswald. FACT!
george floyd was NOT killed by anyone (except possibly himself or his fen dealer). FACT!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Reginald_Denny
^^^Autism^^^
you want to know what autism has that schizo doesn’t. it is in the eyesight. Japan see what they draw as language. Above all they are taught to see. Open battlefields where troop movement was vital. Whites don’t have open battlefields nearly as much as the Asian continent does. Winter and autism go the same. Evolution was built to see to survive. The jungle is evolutionarily built for hearing. Europe is a mix. The language there is language. But the phenology carries over. Africa has diverse languages. Autistics in Europe see well.
Because of a language barrier, people think autistics are mind blind. This is only true of half. Because Autism is a spectrum. Mixed in with schizophrenia. By an autistic type of people “Japan” What is thought as inferior is actually as some MANGA is drawn as well as Da Vinci in a storyboard. Because of eyesight.
The clue of schizophrenia is that it is a vocal type language disorder but can be vissual. But it can be artistic because face blindness can come with hearing voices. Or other mental blindnesses mixed with hallucinations. Seeing people not there with degeneration of metacognition. But metacognition is the least common autism. A slowing of cognition is most common but is a spectrum.
This is a question. Not a criticism at this point. But I’ve heard you claim about 50 times that civilized humans have worse nutrition than hunter gatherers even though we scientifically know modern cooking unleashes more calories and the availability of different nutrients in our food is exponentially better than before.
Where is the evidence that people that live in modern day Papua New Guinea or the eskimos are on better diets?
Maybe the brain shrinkage from being cavemen is nothing to do with nutrition. Maybe the opposite, the better nutrition was making brains smaller.
The evidence is we lived as hunter-gatherers for millions of years so our genes are exquisitely adapted to that diet. Once we made the shift to agriculture we lost several inches of height and suffered all kinds of health problems.
It was only with great post-war advances of the industrial revolution did civilized people get as much or more nutrients than their wild ancestors. That’s why we see kids suddenly getting much taller, bigger brained, and smarter in just the last several generations.
We may have got less calories per person, maybe, but modern civilisation provided much higher calories overall which is why the population size exploded with agriculture.
My suggestion is that people shrunk with agriculture due to some sort of Malthusian limit being hit and this would have been the case with peasants and the poor but generally people are better off nutrition wise with agriculture than hunter gathering. Its more to do with economics.
What do you think?
The population exploded with agriculture because the QUANTITY of food increased, but the QUALITY of the food was less & this resulted in people who were greater in quantity but lower in quality. Only after post-war advances increased the quality of farmed food did agriculture catch up in quality (it was already ahead in quantity)
“That’s why we see kids suddenly getting much taller, bigger brained, and smarter in just the last several generations.”
Jesus, imagine how stupid they were before
“The population exploded with agriculture because the QUANTITY of food increased, but the QUALITY of the food was less & this resulted in people who were greater in quantity but lower in quality.”
I’m not sure youre getting my point. We basically have the same agricultural diet that someone had 100 or 200 years ago (actually some people say our diet is worse with the proliferation of junk food) but economically speaking now we are eating a lot more per person. I’m saying the quality of agricultural products is fine vs the hunter gatherer diet. Whats actually going on is that peasents and poor people just have more food to eat because we’ve pushed out the malthusian limit a bit.
Agriculture made more calories available but this also resulted in it being spread too thinly. As we know, in hunter gatherer societies you basically just die if theres not enough to eat so obviously whoever is left keeps their height and their muscles. I believe this is deceptive and doesn’t tell you about whether agriculture is better than the hunter gatherer diet.
We basically have the same agricultural diet that someone had 100 or 200 years ago
I’m pretty sure it’s improved a lot. And when Lynn talks about nutritional advances of the last 100 years, he’s also including things like disease reduction because diseases prevent the body from using nutrients and they were widespread for the bulk of agricultural history.
Agriculture made more calories available but this also resulted in it being spread too thinly. As we know, in hunter gatherer societies you basically just die if theres not enough to eat so obviously whoever is left keeps their height and their muscles. I believe this is deceptive and doesn’t tell you about whether agriculture is better than the hunter gatherer diet.
So you’re saying the average hunter/gatherer got more calories than the average agriculturalist because the latter had to share the food among more people?
I don’t think we know how it works. All we know is agriculture somehow led to mass stunting which kept us below our genetic potential until the 20th century when we mysteriously started to recover our Paleolithic phenotype.
Peeps,
Hunting-gathering could not have provided steady/regular food three times a day unlike agriculture and the lack of which could have contributed to mal-nourishment in hunter-gatherers.
“So you’re saying the average hunter/gatherer got more calories than the average agriculturalist because the latter had to share the food among more people?”
Yeah the success of agriculture in boosting nutrition is looked at by you as some sort of failure basically.
We’d need to speak to some sort of nutrition expert to know for sure.
I was greatly influenced by this article (see especially the section under the heading HISTORICAL TRENDS):
Click to access lynn1990.pdf
Agriculture provided more regular food though the breadth nutritional content was probably more restricted. There have been recent genetic studies (don’t have them at hand atm) which show that mesolithic/pre-neolithic hunter gatherers had higher genetic risk for things like diabetes but lower risk for heart disease while at a high bmi. Sounds like they didn’t have regular high carbohydrate meals but did have big meals in one go between periods of no major food like killing a deer once in a few days.
A higher proportion of animal protein consumption increases height regardless of how high quality (bio-available) a plant protein comparison is or whether total protein consumption is equal. Just by restricting the consumption of meat, and not being lactose tolerant, I’d expect populations to lose a significant amount of height. Although protein regardless of the source will increase height.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-calories-from-animal-protein-vs-mean-male-height?time=latest
The shift from a nomadic life-style to a settled one, the increase in population allowed by the increase in calories, and the shift to a atypical diet, would massively shift the evolutionary conditions and selective pressure of the group. A high carbohydrate diet in itself would increase the rates of cavities, many early agriculturalists children died from complications related to cavity infections, and definitely died due to disease spreading within (relatively) dense population centers. If the early agriculturalists didn’t understand what crop rotations are, or why land shouldn’t be continually cultivated, the basic nutritional makeup of the plant will decrease up to the point where crop failure in itself will become common. Insufficient nutrition will compromise the immune system and, combined with disease, which takes up a significant amount of a body’s resources to fight off, would reduce height. It’d be odd if they didn’t shrink.
The differences in torso length across populations would probably reveal a lot about what sort of diets different people were conditioned to.
Since people within a few generations did grow after the introduction of a new diet, then of course it would mean they were malnourished.
Philo it sounds like you’re saying ancient agriculturalists artificially inflicted a sort of insular dwarfism on themselves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insular_dwarfism which is hilarious. Nobility generally ate better than peasants and there was a height difference between the two. The potential caloric and nutritional content of the food available was probably greater under early agricultural times but most of it was in the form of grains which aren’t that nutritional, even if calorie dense.
Yeah Lynn is basically making the same mistake as you and only counting the survivors. So called survivor bias.
The only way to resolve this is a nutritional analysis of a typical hunter gatherer diet vs an agricultural one.
But it makes sense to think if you go from a mostly meat to a mostly plant diet, you’d lose a lot of important nutrients.
In a very R selected environment like hunter gathering or Africa you are going to get taller, more physically robust people regardless of whether their diet is actually good or not just based on sexual selection and use of violence.
In civilized societies people are going to be smaller due to K selection. They produce a lot more calories through agriculture and have to share it around instead of beating people to death to get food. Its only in the last 100 years that technology improved so much to counteract and fertility levels also dropped to allow more food per person.
This is a very strange argument. Very very strange.
“But it makes sense to think if you go from a mostly meat to a mostly plant diet, you’d lose a lot of important nutrients.”
We need a nutrition expert but people who did farming, especially using herdable livestock also had decent access to meat and a lot of other nutrients like calcium and vitamins you can’t get just eating meat.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race
“This is a very strange argument. Very very strange.”
It makes complete sense and is basically just reiterating what Rushton said.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-worst-mistake-in-the-history-of-the-human-race
This is a good article. My main complaint is that it does that ‘noble savage’ thing we were talking about in the other thread. Also, I believe the potential of agriculture to eventually provide all the nutrients a human needs is there whereas hunter gatherer diets have no potential. But yeah, ancient farming up until the middle ages was probably inferior to hunter gathering, maybe.
Yes it’s written by a very eminent Jewish scholar named Jared Diamond who lived among the Papuan New Guineans & showered them with praise, even as they occasionally made fun of him.
When he tried to shoot their bow and arrow a five foot 90 lb Native said “You NO strong”
“Me NO strong???” laughed the elderly scholar. (I devote my whole life to writing books about how brilliant you people are, and all you can say is Me NO strong)
I’m aware of who Diamond is. I watched his documentary Guns, Germs and Steel. Hes very smart like many jewish anthropologists but refuses to even countenance HBD.
I wonder what his explanation for jewish success is.
Aside from his IQ, what’s your opinion of him as a person? A nice man sticking up for the poor Papuans, or an evil psychopath with a secret agenda? Do you think he believes what he says?
I think Diamond is a wishful thinker.
I don’t know Diamond well enough to say. I suppose a psychopath would never going to the trouble of living with hunter gatherers.
Yeah he believes what he says but its probable that he also believes HBD on top of what he said. What he said in Guns Germs and Steel isn’t wrong and is factually correct and explains why some civilisations are more complex than others but I believe you also have to acknowledge that certain races of man have higher IQs and yeah maybe then you can say they only evolved those IQs because of the environment. Peter Frost has the best theory which is gene-culture co-evolution.
The whole point of his theory is an alternative to HBD. Geographic luck explains racial inequality, not genes, so to say he believes in HBD on top of that is dumb.
But I’m glad you think he’s sincere because a lot of what you consider Jewish propaganda is just honest Jews like Diamond intelligently arguing their opinions. Now their opinions are likely shaped by their Jewish identity (they have a bias against racialist theories because these were used to persecute Jews) but they’re often not consciously trying, let alone conspiring, to undermine the WASP power structure (though on some level are aware they’re doing so).
What he said in Guns Germs and Steel isn’t wrong and is factually correct and explains why some civilisations are more complex than others
I thought it was unconvincing. He says Papuans never developed civilization because they didn’t have the horse; fair enough. But Africans had the zebra so what’s their excuse? Diamond always has some just-so story to explain why only Eurasian animals could be domesticated.
yeah maybe then you can say they only evolved those IQs because of the environment.
So you think Eurasians created a super civilized environment and only after that evolved high IQs to survive in it? LOL! That’s retarded. If you believe such civilizational gaps predated racial IQ gaps, then why believe in racial IQ gaps at all since the whole point is to explain civilization gaps?
Peter Frost has the best theory which is gene-culture co-evolution.
Seeing as brain size evolution more or less stopped when culture was invented, I’m not sure that’s a great theory.
In a world where jews weren’t our rulers, Frost would be at least as prominent as Diamond in anthro, if not more praised.
Philosopher
Jews may rule the world’s financial system but don’t rule every aspect of every country. Majority of decisions in most countries are taken by the rulers of those countries according to their will and desire. You also said if I remember correctly, that jews are co-rulers of the financial system along with some gentiles thereby implying they are not the sole rulers of that too.
Who are those gentiles by the way?
“But Africans had the zebra so what’s their excuse?”
Well, that’s because Zebras are extremely aggressive. They just aren’t suitable animals for domestication.
“So you think Eurasians created a super civilized environment and only after that evolved high IQs to survive in it? LOL! That’s retarded. If you believe such civilizational gaps predated racial IQ gaps, then why believe in racial IQ gaps at all since the whole point is to explain civilization gaps?
It’s best not to conceptualize this as one event preceding another. Obviously, there is a baseline of intelligence required for being able to create and sustain civilization. Apes aren’t suddenly building the Pyramids. However, all neurotypical humans reach the baseline intelligence threshold needed for this action. Subsequently, the other part of the equation, a suitable environment, is necessary for civilization or society to crop up. Like most tropical environments, Africa is horrible for building a large, functional society. Diamond simply focuses on environmental determinism, specifically geography, because that’s the main active causal force driving these discrepancies. However, my biggest criticism of this is that it doesn’t consider the complex socio-political factors that were also happening.
Since humans are niche constructors, they build environments that, in turn, also shape the direction of their phenotype. This is probably what Philo is trying to say he just isn’t intelligent enough to articulate it as such. Society has made us more intelligent than our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
“This is probably what Philo is trying to say he just isn’t intelligent enough to articulate it as such. ”
Do you think I’m a russian spy melo?
Pill your momma so stupid!
Granted she had access to both the knowledge it was possible to ride and steer an animal, and access to modern training methods, but it’s such a cop out to claim zebras are too aggressive to be domesticated. All traits can be selected for, any deficiencies related to the novel strain of being ridden could be alleviated given enough effort, the only question is whether humans are insane and patient enough to see it through.
Domesticating aurochs can’t be easier than domesticating zebras.
“it’s such a cop out to claim zebras are too aggressive to be domesticated”
Not at all; it’s just the reality of the situation. As you say, you can domesticate many animals, including Zebras. I’m well aware that this has been done before. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that domesticating zebras on the scale of which horses and other animals, including Aurochs, is near impossible because of their extreme aggression and social hierarchies that are not suitable for mass domestication. Examples like what you posted are exceptions to the rule and, as you say, are only possible in individual circumstances with “modern” taming methods.
Still, it doesn’t change the fact that domesticating zebras on the scale of which horses and other animals, including Aurochs, is near impossible because of their extreme aggression and social hierarchies that are not suitable for mass domestication.
I think you’re too quick to assume that because something didn’t happen, it couldn’t have happened. Perhaps if the people living among Zebras were smart enough to understand evolution, they could have selected the least aggressive zebras to breed every generation until they were easy to tame. Most wild creatures are aggressive before they are domesticated. If they weren’t domestication would be redundant.
“I think you’re too quick to assume that because something didn’t happen, it couldn’t have happened.”
Despite my poor wording, I’m not trying to suggest that it could never have happened, but the risk and effort needed to do it are nowhere near as surmountable as other domestication processes were. As biscuit pointed out, and I acknowledged, Zebras could be tamed/domesticated. It’s just extremely difficult, and doing it on a massive scale is not feasible because of their social structures and extreme aggression.
“Most wild creatures are aggressive before they are domesticated. If they weren’t, domestication would be redundant.”
It’s not that zebras are just simply aggressive; it’s the extent of how aggressive they are compared to other animals. Zebras are responsible for more zoo injuries than lions. It makes sense that animals who live in Africa would be more aggressive because they are more frequently predated upon. Everything about Africa’s environment makes it horrible for civilization.
It makes sense that animals who live in Africa would be more aggressive because they are more frequently predated upon.
But they’re more predated upon because Africa is the only place on Earth where modern humans failed to conquer wild life. So maybe you’re right: The wild horses of Eurasia were easier to domesticate than the zebras of Africa, but it could be because Eurasians had the skills to kill off Eurasia’s biggest predators, thus creating a safe space for them to evolve less aggression long before we even thought of domesticating them.
So either way, it might have been differences in human IQ that caused domestication to occur in Eurasia instead of Africa; either because Eurasians better understood how to domesticate, or because their dominance created a safe space where animals more suited to domestication could evolve.
“But they’re more predated upon because Africa is the only place on Earth where modern humans failed to conquer wild life.”
Well, no. They’re more subject to predation because tropical environments tend to have more biomass on average. Warmer climate = more plant life = more prey animals = more predators. Africa is even worse because of its presence of megafauna, which co-evolved with our human ancestors.
“thus creating a safe space for them to evolve less aggression long before we even thought of domesticating them.”
I mean, sure, maybe. There isn’t really much evidence to confirm that, though.
Have you seen this article? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/maya-laser-lidar-guatemala-pacunam
>I’m not trying to suggest that it could never have happened, but the risk and effort needed to do it are nowhere near as surmountable as other domestication processes were. As biscuit pointed out, and I acknowledged, Zebras could be tamed/domesticated. It’s just extremely difficult, and doing it on a massive scale is not feasible because of their social structures and extreme aggression.
The only wild horses still extant are Przewalski’s horses, and the only major difference between their social structure is that Zebras form large alliances between male harem leaders and form herds, while Przewalski’s horses (and feral domesticated horses also) don’t. They just form harem units, similar to Zebras, and they do bond with their leaders, and they do form a dominance hierarchy. Both horse stallions and zebra stallions are very aggressive, perhaps there’s a difference between the two in terms of mare aggression. Although the more I read the more the idea that either wild horse mares weren’t as hierarchical or weren’t as quick to punish rule breakers as zebras, sounds plausible.
As long as the hierarchy is strictly adhered to, even wild Zebras could be trained to draw carriages, although their physical limitations still make riding impractical.
It’s possible wild horses were less aggressive than zebras but their aggression isn’t without rhyme or reason.
In many places the onset of the Neolithic is associated with increased child mortality and reduction in body height among other dimensions.
and bad teeth and diabetes of both types.
if modern humans ate a neanderthal diet dentists and endocrinologists would go out of business.
but maybe other medical professions would experieince a boom.
man is the hunter ape.
dental caries can be cured with silver fluoride, but it turns your teeth black…and prevented by a diet without sucrose…the bacteria that form dental plaque require sucrose to form such plaque…fructose and glucose aren’t enough.
of course trauma can still fuck up your teeth so a few dentists would still have work.
>Diabetes of both types
The neolithic higher rate of diabetes lead to selection for protection against it. This is why hunter gatherers before the neolithic had a higher genetic likelihood of diabetes- no environmental driven selection for it.
^^^LAME^^^
sad.
Dude, there is recent research showing that Early European farmers were more diabetes resistant that WHG late European hunter gatherers. You need to do some reading first instead of memeing and extrapolating based how things are today. The past was different.
And it even makes sense- farmers who don’t need to eat as much at once will be less resistant to cardiovascular issues at higher bmis than hunter gatherers (proven genetically). And farmers who eat more carbs will be able to better regular blood sugar (also proven genetically).
Flamin do you believe in the hereditarian properties of IQ? if you dont and you posted something of the nature that you just did it would be a major contradiction and prove how autistic you are!
Loaded, why do you provoke and insult everyone? Is it intentional or a force of habit?
LOADED,
>Flamin do you believe in the hereditarian properties of IQ?
Yes.
>if you dont and you posted something of the nature that you just did it would be a major contradiction and prove how autistic you are!
Get to the point.
Peeps,
what is your hair colour?
brown
Where is your dad from?
where is your dad from
The gracility-body coordination point doesnt make sense because the part of the brain that primarily controls coordination and movement (cerebellum) was smaller in the Upper Paleolithic than today. The lobes that account for the difference in favor of Upper Paleolithic in comparison to today are the frontal and occipital lobes.
how do you know? Most scientists have only compared pre-war Holocene brains to paleolithic ones, not 21st century ones
How do I know what- That upper paleolithic cerebellums were smaller than extant (=recent holocene) cerebellums? I say this on the basis of comparison to extant modern homo sapiens. For this relation to not be true in post-war era humans, modern day humans would have to have a smaller cerebellum than extant modern day humans prior to the world war era. Do you have indications for reduction in cerebellum size in the past couple of centuries?
Because the extant skulls have bigger cerebellar regions than cro magnon era humans did, in spite of the upper paleolithic overall capacity being larger. The exact numbers vary, but your calculated results aren’t too different from the 2013 cro magnon 1 endocast paper’s results. This goes against the expectation of bigger cerebellums in the upper paleolithic. The extant male capacity in the set was 1427 cc. The modern is probably about 1500cc. Which means that unless the cerebellum shrunk, the gap would be even bigger in favor of modern day people vs upper paleolithic people. So upper paleolithic people wouldn’t have had more of the part of the brain that coordinates the body.
Do you have a link to this paper?
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257799835_First_description_of_the_Cro-Magnon_1_endocast_and_study_of_brain_variation_and_evolution_in_anatomically_modern_Homo_sapiens
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13219-012-0069-z
Thanks for the links
in the human species:
gracile = SMALL HEAD = STUPID
Pingback: The history of Homo Sapiens brain size part 3: pre-war Holocene – Glyn Hnutu-healh: History, Alchemy, and Me
https://stormer-daily.rw/just-how-jewish-can-you-get/
Melo would love this. Maddow is still talking about the Mueller report. Wtf. I used to think Maddow was a real journalist back when I was a liberal and now I don’t even think she’s a liberal. She’s actually closer to being a neocon at this stage shilling for the Deep State. Andrew Anglin also keeps calling her jewish which is false. She’s 1/4 jewish which is not jewish enough. Why is she ruining her career like this?
Its definitely not ratings as Puppy keeps saying.
How Jewish is Jewish enough for you? 1/2? 3/8?
Probably 1/2.
if there were a God why does my dog suffer and die? — stupid person
my last dog murdered at least 6 squirrels so he could play with their dead bodies.
my present dog, when other dogs come up to him and say “can i be your friend?” he says, “fuck off! ugly dog! i’m into humans.” and then he goes and makes out with the gay guy from palm springs.
dogs have been around humans for so long they’ve become humans…NOT nice.
Funnily enough I follow British politics less than American politics but my impression is that ashkenazi jews while being powerful here are not as powerful as in the US.
But its true that jews were a big reason why Corbyn was forced out of the Labour party.
On the other hand gentiles control a lot of the media here. They tend to be Tories mostly plus Murdoch.
The jews were against Brexit and they lost. The USA doesn’t do referendums at all….the only way to beat jews is to keep creating referendums maybe. Thats a lesson we can learn from the British.
There is actually another and in my view better explanation for why our brains shrunk in the last 12k years. Two things occurred 12k years ago that led to this shrinking. The first and most commonly cited is of course the development of agrarian societies during which time there was a dramatic reduction in the nutritional value of the food we ate(leading to the shrinking of our bodies and brains). The second and one I have never encountered anywhere(yet I’m certain the idea has occurred to many others if not been included in some book or research paper somewhere) is the invention of slavery. It is common knowledge that mass scale slavery actually coincided with the development of agriculture. After all it kind of makes sense, as people congregated to cities the ruling class needed people to work the land pick the crops and tend to the livestock. In contrast during the upper paleolithic life would have been incredibly harsh such that lower tier tribe members constituted less than 30% while these were the most likely to die before their time while the ruling class might even move to cull the group in order to prevent the weak or unintelligent from slowing them down. Fast forward to the development of agriculture the ruling class now saw no need to cull the group but rather put as many people to work the fields as possible. In time this led to the creation of a slave class that probably represented the lowest quartile in intelligence. Over time though given the drastic decrease in likelihood that anyone would starve to death(even the least intelligent among us), given that we could reliably grow food from the ground, this meant that the slave class could grow to over double in size.
However what is most interesting from these recent studies is the finding that the majority of that reduction apparently occurred in the last 3000 years. Well another thing coincided with this, the institutionalization of slavery. After all 4th century Athens was 80% – 90% slaves while only several centuries earlier was less than 50%. From the Sumerians to the Egyptians to the Greeks and Romans we see dramatic enlargement and institutionalization of the slave class. IMO this explains far better the shrinking of our brains over the past 12k years. Important to note is that from these studies it was calculated that lower quality diet only accounted for about 40 cc reduction in brain size while the remaining 100 cc can be explained by the introduction of mass scale slavery IMO.
Paradoxically slavery may also be the single most important thing allowing humans to make advancements leaps and bounds greater than ever before in our history. It freed up the most gifted among us to focus on intellectual pursuits, engineering, science while everyone else focused on the manual labor and daily grind. Note the period cited as the birth of western civilization and characterized as extremely intellectually productive(of course I’m talking about classical Greece) also having the highest rates of slavery. This may explain why the powers that be are doing everything they can to go back to that model of social organization, of course this time rebranding it as globalization and so called progressivism.
Pumpkinhead, long time no see!
Plausible theory, but given how much of our brain size has recovered because of 20th century nutrition, I’m inclined to blame the temporary loss much more on malnutrition stunting the phenortype than on a genetic decline
https://pumpkinperson.com/2018/09/02/have-we-recovered-our-paleolithic-brain-size-yet/