Collective brain size, not individual intelligence, may have driven Neanderthal replacement

Evidence

Let me toss out an alternative: individually, the African immigrants (our ancestors) who were contemporary with Neanderthals were a touch innately dumber. However, they had larger collective brains capable of generating greater cumulative cultural evolution. These larger collective brains resulted from bigger and more tightly interconnected social groups as well as from individuals who experienced longer adult lives (on average). … Because of their larger collective brains, this African population may have been able to invade and replace Neanderthals in Europe for the same reasons that the Inuit were able to replace the Dorset. A different environment of origin had fostered different social institutions that generated a more sophisticated and adaptable technological suite. Curiously, despite the extinction of the Dorset and the pre-Numic people of the Great Basin, no one has suggested innate intellectual inferiority. Thus, it’s plausible that the Neanderthal replacement may have been just an earlier chapter in a cultural evolutionary story that has repeated itself time and time again over the history of our genus. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 736

Categorization

• XREF: The claim that tool complexity cannot be read as innate IQ echoes critiques the reader may apply to other source materials assigning cognitive superiority by artifacts. — connects to: A group’s social interconnectedness outweighs individual intelligence in producing innovation — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 694; Random loss of skilled elders can erase a group’s entire complex tool repertoire — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 685; Collective intelligence depends on material infrastructure beyond human minds — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 554 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Collective numbers, not individual genius, drive human intellect’s reach. #corroborates (0.90) — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success, 1043
• Collective intelligence depends on material infrastructure beyond human minds #corroborates (0.80) — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 554