Another argument is that repeated starvation selects for brains that use
energy more efficiently, or simply use less energy. This tends to select for
lower intelligence, and the neolithic brought with it severe and prolonged
periods of starvation, and also generations-long malnutrition.

So we may be at the losing end of a few thousand years of selection for
lowered intelligence! Paleolithic peoples had larger brains on average than
we moderns do.

One area we seem to have severely backslidden is in art. The tiny
populations of ice age Europe produced art at a level of skill and artistry
that only a very few moderns can compete with, with all our billions of
population. And we can only see the art they left on cave walls or the few
surviving statues. I sometimes wonder what art they produced on perishable
materials that we will never know about.

On the other hand, I have never seen any evidence, besides Jarred Diamond's
claims, that modern hunter-gatherers are any great shakes in the brains
department.



Jared Diamond has argued in *Guns, Germs and Steel* that New Guinea hunter
> gatherers are "genetically superior" in "mental ability" to modern folk.
> It
> is a controversial hypothesis, in part because it could be misused to
> support racist ideology, but given the effects of modern foods on the
> brain,
> it is plausible (I find Diamond's argument that Europeans were naturally
> selected for epidemic survival more than intelligence to be a less
> plausible
> reason, though still a possibility), so William may also be correct that
> people were a bit "smarter" during the Paleolithic. That still doesn't
> mean
> smoking makes sense though.
>