Rise, fall, and renewed rise of mean cognitive ability in central Italy (Piffer et al, 2023, Figure 1) Ancient DNA is revealing the cognitive evolution of ancient Rome. Mean cognitive ability rose from the Neolithic to the time of the Republic, fell during the Imperial Era, and then rose again during Late Antiquity. What did Christian Imperial Rome do right that the Pagan one did wrong?
Imperial Romans were nothing like Republican Romans. The Republican Romans were demographically replaced almost in their entirety.
While the Italic Republican Romans were genetically similar to Southern French or Northern Spaniards, the Imperial Romans contained significant Middle Eastern ancestry (Levantine and Anatolian, in addition to Greek) and were closest to Greek Islanders and Cypriots.
When Alexander conquered the Middle East it turned many parts of that world culturally Greek. The Hellenized groups, especially from Anatolia and the Levant, moved to Greece so that in a short amount of time Hellenistic Greece became overwhelmingly Middle Eastern in ancestry.
These groups moved into Italy and in fact there are historical attestations regarding this. Of course they didn't do DNA tests for ancestry back then, they just considered them all to be Greeks.
> This was when the Empire was expanding and building roads, aqueducts, and fortifications. Much less had been achieved during the time of the Republic. How do we explain the apparent contradiction?
Well, there was also the fact that accomplishments were high during the early era, and declined subsequently.
There were a lot of written observations even from ancient sources about the decline of reason and its replacement by superstition and "patriotic propaganda" during 3C.
Notably, the quality of portraiture in Roman coins started falling from the Crisis of the Third Century and collapsed during 5C. (You can observe this in numismatics sections of most any Mediterranean history museum). There's a lot of cope to the effect that it was cultural and had something to do with the spread of Christian iconographic traditions, or shortages of the metals in question, but the simplest explanation is that coiners became less skilled, competent, and conscientious.
Does this mean that Roman Republic IQ's were around 110 IQ? That makes their lack of scientific innovation even more incomprehensible. In this respect, the Romans resemble the ancient East Asian civilizations more than they do the Greeks: high IQ (and some technological advancements) but not as much scientific innovation.
I think that Galton was probably right and that the average Athenian citizen's IQ must have been around 115-120 IQ at its peak. He was right about most everything, after all. Alexandrian Greeks were probably not far off either, given their extremely important contributions in science and mathematics (assuming most of the people involved were born in Alexandria itself). I have no clue why Anatoly Karlin thinks otherwise: the Greeks invented most everything in the arts and sciences.
Once again Peter, you have published a fascinating and lucid story of Roman populations cognitive abilities. It was a pleasure to read. One question I have is if far more ancient Roman DNA is discovered in the future; say thousands of samples, instead of 127 and 102 sample groups respectively, do you think the distributions of mean intelligence would change much across the different time periods? And I know I've mentioned this before but it would be great to see you present your ideas in a video interview in 2024!
You are missing by far the most important reason.
Imperial Romans were nothing like Republican Romans. The Republican Romans were demographically replaced almost in their entirety.
While the Italic Republican Romans were genetically similar to Southern French or Northern Spaniards, the Imperial Romans contained significant Middle Eastern ancestry (Levantine and Anatolian, in addition to Greek) and were closest to Greek Islanders and Cypriots.
When Alexander conquered the Middle East it turned many parts of that world culturally Greek. The Hellenized groups, especially from Anatolia and the Levant, moved to Greece so that in a short amount of time Hellenistic Greece became overwhelmingly Middle Eastern in ancestry.
These groups moved into Italy and in fact there are historical attestations regarding this. Of course they didn't do DNA tests for ancestry back then, they just considered them all to be Greeks.
> This was when the Empire was expanding and building roads, aqueducts, and fortifications. Much less had been achieved during the time of the Republic. How do we explain the apparent contradiction?
Well, there was also the fact that accomplishments were high during the early era, and declined subsequently.
There were a lot of written observations even from ancient sources about the decline of reason and its replacement by superstition and "patriotic propaganda" during 3C.
Notably, the quality of portraiture in Roman coins started falling from the Crisis of the Third Century and collapsed during 5C. (You can observe this in numismatics sections of most any Mediterranean history museum). There's a lot of cope to the effect that it was cultural and had something to do with the spread of Christian iconographic traditions, or shortages of the metals in question, but the simplest explanation is that coiners became less skilled, competent, and conscientious.
Does this mean that Roman Republic IQ's were around 110 IQ? That makes their lack of scientific innovation even more incomprehensible. In this respect, the Romans resemble the ancient East Asian civilizations more than they do the Greeks: high IQ (and some technological advancements) but not as much scientific innovation.
I think that Galton was probably right and that the average Athenian citizen's IQ must have been around 115-120 IQ at its peak. He was right about most everything, after all. Alexandrian Greeks were probably not far off either, given their extremely important contributions in science and mathematics (assuming most of the people involved were born in Alexandria itself). I have no clue why Anatoly Karlin thinks otherwise: the Greeks invented most everything in the arts and sciences.
Once again Peter, you have published a fascinating and lucid story of Roman populations cognitive abilities. It was a pleasure to read. One question I have is if far more ancient Roman DNA is discovered in the future; say thousands of samples, instead of 127 and 102 sample groups respectively, do you think the distributions of mean intelligence would change much across the different time periods? And I know I've mentioned this before but it would be great to see you present your ideas in a video interview in 2024!