Cognitive Genetics Through Time: Surprises From 3,640 Ancient Genomes
After analyzing Educational Attainment + cognitive ability (EA) polygenic scores across 53 ancient cultures, the data tells a story that upends several historical assumptions. While my 2023 study revealed Rome's exceptional cognitive genetics and my 2024 paper revealed fascinating trends across Western Eurasia over 12K years, my expanded analysis of 3,640 genomes shows the complete picture - with some unexpected twists.
EA PGS by culture*
*HG= Hunter-Gatherers; N= Neolithic; CA= Calcolithic/Copper Age; BA= Bronze Age; IA= Iron Age
The Steppe Paradox: Bronze Age Reality Check
The data delivers a clear verdict on Bronze Age steppe cultures:
Yamnaya (-0.64)
Afanasievo (-0.41)
Catacomb (-0.46)
The Steppe Enigma: Brawn Over Brains?
The data reveal a nuanced picture of steppe populations: while their cognitive polygenic scores were decidedly middling (Yamnaya: -0.64; Afanasievo: -0.41), my recent research clarifies their actual evolutionary advantages:
Cognitive Baseline
Smarter than their hunter-gatherer predecessors
Comparable to contemporary Neolithic farmers (e.g., Cucuteni-Trypillia)
No evidence for superior cognitive genetics versus contemporaneous European populations
Physical Distinction
Exceptionally high height PGS (surpassing WHG (Western Hunter Gatherers), EHG (Eastern Hunter Gatherers), and Anatolian Farmers)
May explain their successful expansion through physical dominance
Behavioral Profile
Lower genetic risk for depression
Predisposition to autism spectrum traits
Suggests a distinctive neurocognitive phenotype optimized for pastoralist lifestyles
This paints a more complex picture than popular "superior steppe intellect" narratives. Their evolutionary edge appears to have been:
✓ Physical (height/strength)
✓ Behavioral (stress resilience/systematizing cognition)
✓ Cultural (mobility/warfare technology)
...rather than raw cognitive advantage.
The effect of Steppe-Pastoralist ancestry on the height PGS (WHG are the reference group).
Neolithic Surprises: Early Farmers Outperforming Expectations
Contrary to assumptions about "primitive" early farmers, several Neolithic groups show relatively strong scores:
Britain Neolithic (0.44) - an exceptional case
Iberia Neolithic (-0.16)
The Britain N result (0.44 Z-score) stands as a genetic anomaly that rewrites our understanding of early European cognitive development. Scoring higher than nearly all subsequent Bronze Age populations—including the celebrated Bell Beaker (-0.06) and Wessex cultures—this finding suggests:
A Lost Peak of Neolithic Potential
Outperformed contemporaneous European farmers (Germany LBK: -0.44)
Surpassed later metal-using societies for millennia
Implies uniquely powerful selection pressures in Neolithic Britain
The Stonehenge Connection
This cognitive edge may explain:
• Precision engineering of megalithic monuments
• Complex astronomical knowledge encoded in structures
• Large-scale social coordination requiring advanced cognition
The Etruscan-Roman Continuum
The Italian data reveal a fascinating trajectory—one of spectacular ascent followed by unexpected stagnation:
Etruscan Foundations (900-300 BCE)
Already elevated at 0.62 (surpassing contemporaneous European groups)
Their sophisticated city-states and trade networks may have established early selective pressures
Republican Peak (500-27 BCE)
My 2023 study found Republican Rome at 1.34—an unprecedented high
Likely driven by extreme selective pressures:
✓ Urban density (1M+ population)
✓ Meritocratic military/political systems
✓ Cultural valorization of education
Imperial Plateau (27 BCE-476 CE)
Scores fell to 0.45 despite Rome’s territorial peak
Possible explanations:
• Dilution from provincial integration (granting citizenship to millions)
• Weakened selection pressures as social mobility declined
• The "Antonine Plague effect" (165-180 CE may have disrupted selective trends)
Medieval Legacy (500-1500 CE)
There was a partial recovery to 0.78—still below Republican-era highs, but the third-highest score in the dataset. Could favorable genetics have helped spark the Italian Renaissance?"
Three Key Transitions in Cognitive Genetics
1. The Neolithic Foundation
Early farmers showed variability
Britain N's high score (0.44) stands out
Suggests regional differences in selective pressures
3. The Iron Age & Medieval Rise
Clear upward trend in complex societies
Rome's exceptional trajectory
Medieval differentiation across Europe
Why These Findings Matter
Challenges steppe-superiority narratives, at least in terms of IQ
Reveals Neolithic societies weren't uniformly "primitive"
Shows Rome's advantage had deep roots
Demonstrates regional variability in cognitive genetics
When did intelligence peak?
The longitudinal data reveal an intriguing pattern across 12 millennia, as shown by this scatterplot:
Peak Period (~0-200 CE):
Maximum PGS values cluster in Classical Antiquity
Corresponds with the height of Roman and Han civilizations
Post-Classical Decline:
Gradual reduction through Late Antiquity
Nadir during early Medieval period (500-1000 CE)
Partial Recovery:
Moderate resurgence in High/Late Middle Ages
Never reaches Classical-era peak values
Important Caveats:
Population stratification may confound these trends
• Changing sample composition across periods
• Potential ancestry-related artifactsUpcoming analyses will:
✓ Control for principal components
✓ Implement mixed models accounting for relatedness
✓ Test region-specific trajectories
Preliminary Interpretation:
While the temporal pattern is visually striking, caution against overinterpretation is warranted until:
Completing ancestry-controlled analyses
Validating with larger sample sizes
Comparing with parallel phenotypic evidence
The Big Questions Ahead
Why did Britain N score so high?
What enabled Rome's exceptional trajectory?
How much was selection vs. migration?
Coming Soon: Expanding the Ancient Trait Atlas
This cognitive PGS analysis is just the beginning. Over the next year, I'll be publishing similar deep dives into:
Height evolution across Europe and East Asia
One of the most provocative theories in economic history—Gregory Clark’s argument that genetic improvements in intelligence catalyzed the Industrial Revolution—can now be tested with ancient DNA.
Mental health polygenic scores: Depression/ASD through time
Genetic test of cross-cultural personality theories
Good post. It is refreshing to be moving away from the whole "weak Early European Farmer" narrative that has proliferated in misinformed online circles.
Our Neolithic European ancestors were patrilineal people. Patrilineality is a kinship system whereby an individual's family membership derives from the father's direct paternal lineage.
One of the earliest examples of patrilineality comes from Neolithic Europe in 4800 BC, where two families buried in a necropolis in Gurgy, France, are both connected via the male line as determined by the structure of the burial and Y-DNA haplogroup analysis.
Further evidence suggests that patrilineality was a kinship system used by Early European Farmers of indigenous European Hunter-Gatherer origin as well. The powerful elite buried within the Neolithic passage tomb at Newgrange belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup I2a (a Western Hunter-Gatherer lineage). You mentioned in the article that Early European Farmers in Britain underwent selection for intelligence.
Despite the Newgrange elite's overall autosomal ancestry being inherited from Anatolian Farmers and roughly a quarter from the Western Hunter-Gatherers, his phenotypic traits (specifically his complexion) resembled that of his hunter-gatherer ancestors several generations before him due to being the result of an incestuous relationship. Likely as a means by his parents to preserve the phenotypic traits of their hunter-gatherer ancestors.
The system of patrilineality for cultures primarily descended from European hunter-gatherers on the direct male line continued into the Middle Bronze Age.
Recent discoveries show that the use of patrilineality by farmer-descended populations was not affected by the introduction of Western Steppe Herder ancestry into the European gene pool. This is important to note because it does away with the misconstrued idea that the Early European Farmers simply vanished or whatever people say when the Western Steppe Herders arrived. A new paper by Allentoft et al. (2024) provides an example of an individual labelled NEO792 whose overall ancestry was 85% descended from Western Steppe Herders, but his Y-DNA lineage was I2a-S2703. A Funnelbeaker Early European Farmer subclade of Western Hunter-Gatherer origin.
NEO792 was buried in a megalithic tomb, not a burial mound, and carried mt-DNA haplogroup U2e2a1, a Western Steppe Herder derived female lineage. This means that despite NEO792 indirectly inheriting the majority of his overall ancestry from Western Steppe Herders, he was likely aware of his direct paternal heritage going back to his Funnelbeaker farmer male ancestors and was given a special megalithic tomb burial in the same fashion as them.
This shows us that patrilineality was a core social attitude of Bronze Age Europeans of Hunter-Gatherer origin and that their identity, cultural customs, culture, and overall perception of themselves was unique on a local level. Further evidence suggests that this is the case based on the aforementioned paper by Allentoft et al., where a new discovery shows us that the origin of the Germanic people lay with a core population of men belonging to Y-haplogroup I1, an indigenous European hunter-gatherer lineage, with additional hunter-gatherer ancestry.
The I1 cluster's introduction of stone cist burials into Denmark by 1750 BC shows us that a unique culture had developed within Scandinavia before or around 2600 BC and that this population would have likely used patrilineality as a means of kinship identification. This system and understanding of their ancestry would also be used as an exemplification of their elite lineage moving into the Nordic Bronze Age, where we see I1 become the leading lineage of the Nordic Bronze Age elite. Not a Western Steppe Herder lineage, but a hunter-gatherer lineage indigenous to Scandinavia itself.
Is there any genetic basis to the intellectual fecundity of classical Greece? Seems wild that Imperial Rome had peak scores because intellectually they are outshone by both Classical Greece and Modern nw Europe. Or would studies like this not pick up the cognitive elite production that produced the latter two?