## Is Human Intelligence Simple Part 1 Evolution and Archaeology ### Is Human Intelligence Simple? Part 1: Evolution and Archaeology  #### Metadata * Author: [[Sarah Constantin]] * Full Title: Is Human Intelligence Simple? Part 1: Evolution and Archaeology * Category: #articles * URL: <https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/is-human-intelligence-simple-part-4e9?s=r&cmdid=KKAJHKV90XYXES> #### Highlights * Sarah Constantin Jun 16 15 6 If you zoom way out and look at the history of life on Earth, humans evolved incredibly recently. The Hominidae — the family that includes orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and humans — only arose 20 million years ago, in the most recent 0.5% of evolutionary history. * Purposeful problem-solving behaviors like tool use and cooking are not unique to hominids; some other mammals and birds use tools, and lots of vertebrates (including birds and fish) can learn to solve puzzles to get a food reward. The general class of "problem-solving behavior" that we see, to one degree or another, in many vertebrates, doesn't seem to have arisen surprisingly fast compared to the existence of animals in general. * So what are these special human-unique cognitive abilities? In archaeology there's a concept of behaviorally modern humans, a suite of behaviors that all arise after the earliest evidence of anatomically modern Homo sapiens. The new behaviors include1: art and ornaments bone, ivory, and shell artifacts such as needles and pins evidence of ritual in the form of elaborate graves elaborate hearths, oldest "ruins" transport of desirable rock materials over hundreds of kilometers fishing rapid increase in human population density, geographic range, and artifact diversity # Is Human Intelligence Simple? Part 1: Evolution and Archaeology  ## Metadata - Author: [[Sarah Constantin]] - Full Title: Is Human Intelligence Simple? Part 1: Evolution and Archaeology - Category: #articles - URL: https://sarahconstantin.substack.com/p/is-human-intelligence-simple-part-4e9?s=r&cmdid=KKAJHKV90XYXES ## Highlights - Sarah Constantin Jun 16 15 6 If you zoom way out and look at the history of life on Earth, humans evolved incredibly recently. The Hominidae — the family that includes orangutans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and humans — only arose 20 million years ago, in the most recent 0.5% of evolutionary history. - Purposeful problem-solving behaviors like tool use and cooking are not unique to hominids; some other mammals and birds use tools, and lots of vertebrates (including birds and fish) can learn to solve puzzles to get a food reward. The general class of “problem-solving behavior" that we see, to one degree or another, in many vertebrates, doesn’t seem to have arisen surprisingly fast compared to the existence of animals in general. - So what are these special human-unique cognitive abilities? In archaeology there’s a concept of behaviorally modern humans, a suite of behaviors that all arise after the earliest evidence of anatomically modern Homo sapiens. The new behaviors include1: art and ornaments bone, ivory, and shell artifacts such as needles and pins evidence of ritual in the form of elaborate graves elaborate hearths, oldest “ruins” transport of desirable rock materials over hundreds of kilometers fishing rapid increase in human population density, geographic range, and artifact diversity