In cold environments, human
cognitive ability was an adaptation not to resource scarcity, as is often
claimed, but to an abundance of resources that could be exploited only through
a high level of planning, coordination, and tool development.
Caribou on Thelon River
(Wikicommons – Cameron Hayne)
A reader has asked me, via
Twitter: “Do you have any articles as to why the IQ of Siberian and Inuit
peoples is lower than Northern Europeans despite similarly cold climate?”
Actually, indigenous Arctic peoples
seem to be close to the global maximum of cognitive ability. It is also true,
however, that the maximum is at more temperate latitudes, specifically within
two broad regions:
·
East Asia – this is
a “plateau” of populations with consistently high mean IQ, i.e., Chinese,
Koreans, and Japanese. For Unz (2013), this plateau arose during the time of
recorded history through the upper classes continually replacing the lower
classes: “Each generation, the poorest disappeared, the less affluent failed to
replenish their numbers, and all those lower rungs on the economic ladder were
filled by the downwardly mobile children of the fecund wealthy.” A secondary
cause was the imperial examination for civil-service jobs: "in China the
proud family traditions would boast generations of top-scoring test-takers,
along with the important government positions that they had received as a
result."
·
Europe – this second
plateau likewise arose during the time of recorded history, at first slowly
during antiquity and then more rapidly during the late medieval to early modern
period (Clark 2007; Woodley 2017). The latter increase was driven by expansion
of the middle class, particularly by craftspeople who participated in the
proto-industrial revolution of the 15th to early 19th centuries. There are thus
“peaks” in the plateau, notably Ashkenazi Jews and the descendants of cottage-industry
communities in Ulster, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Brittany, Flanders, Alsace,
Westphalia, Saxony, the Zurich uplands, the Piedmont, and Lombardy (Cochran et
al. 2006; Dunkel et al. 2019; Frost 2007; Piffer 2019; Seccombe 1992, pp.
205-217). Those communities contributed disproportionately to European population
growth through early marriage and high childbearing, thus changing Europe’s
cognitive landscape (Seccombe 1992, pp. 205-217).
The fatalism of serfs gave
way to the rationalism of craftspeople: "The life-choices that structure family continuity through time had more predictable consequences; critical objectives could be achieved more regularly. Increasingly, the problem of uncontrolled randomness in life's fortunes was addressed through the calculus of probabilities, rather than through ritual, prayer, pleas for divine intercession, and stoicism ..." (Seccombe 1992, p. 212).
There is another high-IQ peak among the Finns (Piffer 2019), for reasons
that remain uncertain (Late transition from hunting to farming? Absence of
serfdom?).
If cold climates select for
cognitive ability, why do we find maximum cognitive ability at temperate
latitudes? This is the apparent contradiction I address in my 2019 paper. In
short, I argue that cold climates selected for cognitive ability only when
humans were hunter-gatherers. This selection was driven not by resource
scarcity, as is often claimed, but rather by an abundance of resources that
could be exploited only through a high level of planning, coordination, and
tool development (Frost 2019). With the advent of farming, and increasing
social complexity, the pressure of selection shifted southward to environments
that imposed new cognitive challenges: literacy and numeracy, state formation, laws
and law enforcement, social stratification, expansion of the built environment,
growth of music, literature, and the fine arts, development of religious
beliefs and practices, construction of roads and other infrastructures, and so
on.
This cognitive evolution initially
went farther in the Middle East. Then, sometime around the 16th century, that
region seemed to hit a ceiling as the pace of social complexification slowed
down. The slowdown had several causes. First, there was demographic stagnation
and loss of food production, due to the cumulative effects of erosion,
salinization, and overgrazing. Second, there were ideological constraints.
Although Islam was not alone in seeking to limit the free expression of ideas,
it was more effective than Christianity in preventing the rise of a secular
intellectual class that could spur progress in science and technology. Third, a
true market economy failed to develop in the Middle East. The concept of trade
was widely understood, but production of goods and services remained mostly within
the household, i.e., family members, servants and, more broadly, relatives and
in-laws. As a result, the market could not replace kinship as the main
organizing principle of society.
Finally, and perhaps most
importantly, cognitive evolution continued in Europe and East Asia because their
lower classes were continually replaced, demographically, by their middle and
upper classes. This process, described by Gregory Clark for England and Ron Unz
for China, has three key elements:
1. Social class correlates positively
with IQ.
2. Social class correlates
positively with reproductive success. Lower classes fail to reproduce
themselves, whereas higher classes more than reproduce themselves.
3. There are no barriers to
downward social mobility. Lower classes are thus continually replaced by the
demographic overflow of higher classes (Clark 2007; Unz 2013).
These three elements are not
universal. Hunter-gatherers and simple farming societies have little or no
social stratification. Other societies are stratified but have no State that
can monopolize the use of violence. There is instead an ongoing free-for-all
that selects for ruthlessness, charisma, and the ability to mobilize male
violence. Finally, some societies are so stratified that downward mobility is
impossible. Social classes are permanent “castes.”
In sum, cognitive evolution was
initially driven by cold climate at higher latitudes and later by increasing
social complexity at lower latitudes. Some higher-latitude groups then moved
south to exploit the opportunities being created by increased social complexity.
Those groups were not the ones who initiated the transition to farming,
sedentism, and social complexity. Instead, they arrived after the fact, being
cognitively pre-adapted for the opportunities that others had created and thus better
able to pursue this evolutionary trajectory (Frost 2019).
Studies of cognitive ability in Arctic peoples
To return to the original
question, indigenous Arctic peoples seem to be close to the global maximum of
cognitive ability, but the evidence is limited and questionable. This situation
has three causes:
·
Difficulties in
administering IQ tests to people who are unfamiliar not only with modern
concepts but also with the modern question-and-answer paradigm. Traditionally,
indigenous Arctic people learn not by asking questions but by observing a
“master” and then copying whatever he or she does. Asking questions can also be
impolite, especially if too many are asked in rapid succession. I should point
out that the same difficulties used to exist in Western societies. People in
Britain and North America were unfamiliar with standardized written tests until
the rise of publicly funded schools and competitive civil-service exams in the
late 19th century (Wikipedia 2022). It wasn’t because people got smarter that
mean IQ rose during the 20th century. They just got better at taking tests.
·
Ideological
constraints. IQ research was discouraged in the Soviet Union, partly because of
the dominant belief in environmental determinism and partly because of a desire
to avoid stigmatizing certain national groups. A ban on intelligence testing
was thus imposed in 1936 and gradually lifted only in the 1960s and early 1970s
(Grigoriev and Lynn 2009).
·
Lack of research
on alleles associated with educational attainment. This avenue of research
offers a better measure of innate cognitive ability but is still in its infancy
with respect to Arctic peoples. I know of only one relevant study. Piffer
(2013) found that the Met allele at COMT,
a gene linked to executive function, working memory, and intelligence, is more
frequent in farming societies than in hunter-gatherers, with one interesting
exception: "hunter-gatherers living at high latitudes (Inuit) show high
frequencies of the Met allele, possibly due to the higher pressure on
technological skills and planning abilities posed by the adverse climatic conditions
near the North Pole."
Siberia (Evenk, Altai, Yakuts)
In Siberia, IQ tests were
conducted in 1929 and later in 2015-17. The first period saw testing among the
Evenk of the northeast and the Altai of the south.
When a Binet test was
administered to 5 Evenk children 7 to 19 years old, the mean score was 70.16.
The study’s author reported that the children had trouble understanding units
of measurement and number.
He reported that when Evenk
children were questioned about devices for measurement, they did not have the
concept of an absolute unit of measurement. They thought that the unit changed
with the material measured. Bulanow [the author] reported further that when he
asked Evenk adults how many children they had “It was difficult, almost
impossible, to get from parents precise information as to how many of their
children were alive, how many of their children had died, what was the age of
their children, and so on.” (Grigoriev and Lynn 2009, p. 449)
When a Binet test was
administered to 52 Altai children 8 to 20 years old, the mean score was 66.9.
Again, the subjects had problems with units of measurement: “when they were
questioned about the length of a meter, the Altai would often ask: “Which
meter?” They thought that the meter in one shop could be longer than in
another” (Grigoriev and Lynn 2009, p. 450). Nonetheless, adult Altai showed
remarkable aptitudes in other areas of life:
Although adult Altai performed
calculations poorly at the time of study, they showed a remarkable ability for
visual estimation of large quantities. A herdsman, who could count only to
20–30, noticed very well the absence of one horse, cow or sheep in a herd of
many hundreds. He looked at a huge herd and noted that a particular cow was
absent. Another example of the great visualization ability of the Altai was
that they could remember and showed the way through wild territory, where they
had been only once many years previously (Grigoriev and Lynn 2009, p. 450)
In recent years, there has
been a renewed effort to study cognitive ability among indigenous Siberian
peoples:
·
Shibaev and Lynn
(2015) tested 29 Evenk children and found a mean score of 80. Also tested were
13 ethnic Russian children, who had grown up under similar conditions. Their
mean score was 85.
·
Shibaev and Lynn
(2017) tested 287 Yakut children and 52 ethnic Russian children from eastern
Siberia. The mean score was 97.0 for the Yakuts and 97.9 for the ethnic
Russians.
·
Shibaev et al.
(2020) tested 518 Yakut children and 956 ethnic Russian children. The age range
was wider than in previous studies, and the IQ difference between the two
groups seemed, in general, to be greater at younger ages than at older ones. At
9 years of age the Russians had a 3 point advantage over the Yakuts, whereas at
17 this advantage was zero. Yakut children may have a slower rate of cognitive
maturation. There is also some doubt as to the comparability of the two groups,
since the Russians came largely from a city (Tomsk), while the Yakuts came from
a city (Yakutsk) and a small town (Vilyuysk).
The authors note that the
differences between ethnic Russians and indigenous Siberians can be largely
explained by an urban-rural divide:
[…] for both Russians and
Yakuts the IQs of the city samples were higher than the IQs of the village
samples. For the Russians, there was a difference of 10.5 IQ points between the
combined city samples and the village sample, while for the Yakuts the difference
was 4.4 points. The higher IQs of the city samples is a common result found in
many previous studies reporting that urban populations typically obtain higher
IQs than rural populations. (Shibaev and Lynn 2017)
Shibaev and Lynn (2017)
attribute this urban-rural divide to differential migration: smarter people
move to the city, and dumber people stay home in the village. I would argue
that villagers are less familiar with modern concepts and the modern
question-and-answer paradigm.
Arctic North America (Inuit)
Like indigenous Siberians, the
Inuit (Eskimos) display an unusual ability to find their way across vast
expanses of territory, a task that requires remembering huge amounts of visuospatial
data. Adults are reported to have an "extraordinary ability to find their
way through what appears to be a featureless terrain by remembering visual
configurations [...]. According to some reports, such memories persist for long
periods of time. Elderly hunters have succeeded in guiding parties through
terrain seen only in their youth" (Kleinfeld 1973, p. 344)
Nonetheless, Inuit have done
poorly in most IQ studies, especially in older studies of traditional Inuit.
Kleinfeld (1973) cites several reasons:
Unfamiliarity with test-taking:
Eskimos' performance on
standardized tests may be lowered because of their unfamiliarity with
test-taking conventions and because of cultural biases of the tests. Eskimos,
for example, may find it difficult to view a trivial, pointless task such as
copying a design or running through a finger maze as worthy of serious
concentration and maximum effort.
Racial context of test-taking
Eskimos, especially young
males, have become increasingly antagonistic to any sort of testing and
research, which they view as another form of White exploitation. Co-operation,
if given at all, may be perfunctory, resulting in extremely low test scores.
Extreme caution during test-taking
Eskimos, especially males,
have been socialized into extreme caution before making a judgment. The hunter
is taught never to take risks, never to call out a hasty evaluation because the
penalty can be swift death not only for himself but also for others who rely on
his decision. […] Especially more traditional Eskimos tend to have a slow,
cautious response style which may depress their scores on speeded figural
tests.
Slower rate of cognitive maturation
[There is] some evidence that
Eskimos' peak performance on figural tests occurs later than that of Western
groups. [This] raises the possibility of a slower rate of cognitive maturation among
Eskimos which would be consistent with their somewhat slower rate of physical
maturation […]. If this is the case, the usual age-matched comparisons between
Western and Eskimo children on figural tests may be misleading.
In their reviews of the literature,
Kleinfeld (1973) and Taylor and Skanes (1976) note that Inuit generally
outperform Whites on visual discrimination and spatial tests. Interestingly,
Inuit children do almost as well as non-Inuit children on English spelling
tests while doing poorly in other aspects of English, perhaps because they
memorize the shapes of words. On the other hand, they underperform White
children on verbal-educational and inductive reasoning tests. The latter
finding may reflect lack of familiarity with English in earlier studies. When Taylor
and Skanes (1976a) tested Inuit and White first graders for vocabulary and
arithmetic, using the Wechsler Pre-School and Primary Scale of Intelligence,
they found no significant differences between the two groups in spatial,
verbal-educational, and inductive reasoning abilities. When the same
researchers tested a larger sample of Inuit and White children from different
age groups, using a series of digit span tests and Raven’s progressive
matrices, they found that the Inuit children caught up with the White children
with increasing age on the digit span tests and that the Inuit children
outperformed the White children on the Raven’s progressive matrices (Taylor and
Skanes 1976b).
Wright et al. (1996) tested
the IQ of Inuit children in Arctic Quebec during the first two grades of
school, using Coloured Progressive Matrices (CPM). Mean scores were
consistently higher than age-appropriate U.S. norms and were comparable with
data for White children in southern Quebec. In addition, the scores of children
with two Inuit parents did not differ significantly from those of children with
mixed Inuit/White heritage.
Nonetheless, Inuit children do
worse at school than other children, having not only lower rates of academic
achievement but also higher dropout and suicide rates. For Clifton and Roberts
(1988), the reason is inferior self-perception of their ability and less active
involvement in the educational process. This mindset may be rooted in the
traditional Inuit attitude toward education, where the “student” simply
observes and copies the “master.”
In sum, the Inuit seem to have
about the same level of cognitive ability as people of European origin, with
perhaps some interesting differences: superior visuospatial skills, higher risk
aversion, slower cognitive maturation, and a more imitative and less
inquisitive approach to learning. It is still unclear whether they have lower
verbal-educational and inductive reasoning abilities. In their review, McShane
and Berry (1988, p. 392) conclude that indigenous Arctic peoples do well
relative to Euroamerican norms, showing “high performance on both piagetian and
psychometric tests of visually based spatial, analytic, disembedding, and
inductive abilities.” The two researchers attribute reports of lower verbal
ability to second-language familiarity with the test language. Clearly, more
research is needed, if only to adapt the northern educational system to Inuit
needs.
It must be said that the Inuit
are ill-suited to the Western model of education and, more broadly, to the
Western model of sedentism, individualism, and asociality. Young Inuit feel
useless in that kind of society, and all too many end up committing suicide.
Conclusion and discussion
We have only a few studies of
cognitive ability among indigenous Arctic peoples. This paucity is due only in
part to methodological problems. In the Soviet Union, all IQ research ceased between
1936 and the 1960s. It has recommenced among indigenous Arctic peoples only
over the past decade. Meanwhile, similar research in Canada and the U.S. has
been nonexistent since the 1990s.
If we look at the existing research,
we may doubt whether the subjects were fully familiar with test-taking and the
modern question-and-answer paradigm. Another problem is that indigenous Arctic
children seem to have a slower rate of cognitive maturation. If Yakut subjects
are still catching up to Russian subjects at the age of 17, it might be more
appropriate to compare the two groups at an older age. In practice, this would
be difficult because young adults start following different life paths after
17. Finally, indigenous Arctic peoples may allocate their mental capacities
differently, being better, for instance, at processing visuospatial data than
other kinds of information. Since IQ tests have been designed for Western
children, the test design may not correspond to the mental tasks that some
non-Western groups prioritize.
Yes, dear reader, I hear you.
If people do well on one cognitive task, they should do well on all others,
shouldn’t they? Isn’t that what the g factor is all about? In other words,
people will tap into the same mental capacity for any cognitive task.
The relative strength of the g
factor, however, has been calculated from subjects in Western or Westernized
societies. Does it have the same strength across different mental domains among
people who until recently were nomadic hunters? Anthropologists, like John
Berry, have argued that hunters allocate much more of their mental capacity to visuospatial
orientation:
Hunters, by this way of
thinking, require good visual acuity, keen disembedding skills and a
well-developed sense of spatial orientation. To hunt successfully, the hunter
must be able to discern the object of the quest (which is often embedded in a
complex visual landscape), then disembed the object, and finally return to home
base. In contrast, agriculturalists need not develop these particular skills,
but rather they need to invest in other areas of development, such as
conservation (in both the economic and the Piagetian senses) and close social
interactions. (Berry 2008, p. 3)
It would be interesting to
find out whether these skills have become hardwired to some degree through
gene-culture coevolution. Are hunting peoples inherently better at orienting
themselves in space? Did vast expanses of land favor the success of people who
could more easily find their way across vast expanses of land? To answer that
question, John Berry launched a project in the late 1980s with the geneticist
L.L. Cavalli-Sforza. They wished to recruit participants among the Inuit of
northern Canada and use aptitude for soapstone carving as a means to measure visuospatial
skills:
With most individuals having
had a reasonably fair chance and stimulation to become artists, one is in a
better condition to study possible genetic factors contributing to artistic
talent, if any. Another great advantage of carrying out this study among the
Inuit is the frequency with which adoptions (also early ones, at birth) occur
in this population. Frequencies of adoptions reported during the meeting varied
from 15% to 30%. Adoptions allow one to distinguish cultural from biological
inheritance by studying correlations of adopted children with foster relatives
on one hand and biological relatives on the other. (Berry and Cavalli-Sforza
1986)
Cavalli-Sforza was thinking,
here, along the lines of gene-culture coevolution. He had in fact been one of the
founders of that paradigm, although he preferred the term “dual inheritance
theory.” Now, he would have a chance to investigate it in the field.
Then, suddenly, he backed out
of the project. For “health reasons.” Yet neither his biography nor his
autobiography mentions any health problems during that period of his life.
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