Adam Smith famously commented on how specialization increased productivity in a pin factory, where different individuals specialized in each subtask involved in manufacturing even a simple object.
I thought of that anecdote while reading it Razib Khan’s account of the difference between Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe:
Although Neanderthals made effective tools, they were never standardized, skillfully and cunningly crafted, yes, but always seemed to reflect the creative choices of their individual makers. Tools made by our anatomically modern ancestors have a monotonous but efficient uniformity that sets them apart from Neanderthal knives. According to Slimak, the indigenous Neanderthals were individualistic craftsmen, while the pushy moderns were collective creatures, prone to producing standardized tools as if they were Paleolithic factory workers.
You might assume that modern humans were more productive because they were more intelligent. In fact, there is mounting evidence that the decisive factor was their greater sociability, which allowed them to work together in larger cooperative groups:
It is known that Neanderthals had brains that were on average about 10% larger than our own species, so it is unlikely that they were unintelligent. However, it is very likely that they had different cognitive strengths and were relatively antisocial. And this antisociality is probably the cause of their greater socio-cultural stagnation compared to the human population that came from Africa, which turned out to be much more protean and changeable. . . .
Anatomically modern humans who spread across Eurasia and Australia organized their societies markedly differently from Neanderthals. Genetic results of sites in the Upper Paleolithic in Europe ~35,000 years ago, bare minimum inbreeding within the bond is evident, with partners consistently being completely unrelated to each other, requiring access to widespread social networks. . . .
And yet evidence is now mounting that Neanderthal social groups 50,000 years ago were both smaller and more isolated than those of our ancestors. They simply appear to have been less social than their African cousins.
In a previous post, I argued that America’s economic success was partly due to the country’s ability to assimilate highly talented people from around the world. Perhaps the same was true of early modern humans. Modern descendants of early Eurasians are about 2% Neanderthals, and the genetic proportion was probably at least 10% around the time the Neanderthals became extinct. (Of course, these events took place in a very different world, and we cannot assume that this example has important implications for modern political issues such as immigration.)
The comment about the intelligence of Neanderthal craftsmen versus modern human workers reminds me of similar comparisons in the modern world. Compare an English worker in a Smithian pin factory in the 1770s with a Native American living in present-day Montana. Which was more intelligent, in the sense that it could perform a wide range of complex tasks?
Khan ends with some interesting comments about how the intelligence of the modern world is embedded in the institutions of society:
Thanks to information technology, the modern world is largely a collective mind, with synergies of innovation driving collective productivity gains in many societies. Perhaps this kind of transition, or cultural phase change, was also what marked the emergence of our species as lone survivors, a collective borg brain as opposed to our wayward Neanderthal cousins with their isolated geniuses and bespoke creations. Instead of individual intelligence, there may have been a cultural shift towards a collective brain. Perhaps IUP people pioneered mass production, giving up their individual social status for the more lasting victories of the tribe.
Read the whole thing.
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