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Was the Cro-Magnon the Most Intelligent Modern Human?
Constantin Cretan
Published: 2016/12/01
Abstract
When comparing the current IQ maps of Europe and the Near/Middle East with the maps showing the proportion of DNA inherited from Neolithic farmers, we notice that IQ is increasingly lower as Neolithic genetic inheritance is greater. This suggests that the transition from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic might have led to a decline of intelligence, as Robert Klark Graham (1970) claimed, and that human intelligence had reached its peak with the Cro-Magnons. Comparing the same IQ maps with the geographic advance of the Neolithic and of complex post-Neolithic civilizations, we notice that the average IQ today is lower in regions that had an earlier entrance into the Neolithic and into complex civilization, suggesting that genotypic intelligence declined during or after the Neolithic, as maintained by Elmer Pendell (1977), and as demonstrated for modern Western civilization by Richard Lynn (1996) and confirmed recently by molecular evidence (Beauchamp, 2016; Conley et al., 2016). Studies of ancient DNA can test this theory of intelligence decline in the near future. Key Words: Genotypic intelligence; Natural selection; IQ maps; Neolithic revolution; Civilizations; Polygenic scores; Allele frequency; DUF1220
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