How many lived during the Aurignacian?

[bicicleur 2]

this is a better pic from Laziridis 2018 :

common west eurasian are the unadmixed (pure with drift) west eurasian (Gravettian)
they are ancestral to Villabruna and 72 % ancestral to Dzudzuana (along wit 28 % Basal Eurasian)

 

[markod]

this is a better pic from Laziridis 2018 :

common west eurasian are the unadmixed (pure with drift) west eurasian (Gravettian)
they are ancestral to Villabruna and 72 % ancestral to Dzudzuana (along wit 28 % Basal Eurasian)

Again, that's not accurate :grin:

The WHGs are shown here to be more closely related to the Aurignacians.

Sungir best represent the intrusive Gravettians. Wherever they came from, they were responsible for turning the grand Eurasian plain into largely West Eurasian territory by pushing back the descendants of the Ust'Ishim related peoples.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Again, that's not accurate :grin:

The WHGs are shown here to be more closely related to the Aurignacians.

Sungir best represent the intrusive Gravettians. Wherever they came from, they were responsible for turning the grand Eurasian plain into largely West Eurasian territory by pushing back the descendants of the Ust'Ishim related peoples.

the Aurignacians are represented by Goyet
WHG by common west Eurasian
and Gravettians, it depends on how you define them, they included several different clusters

 

[Ygorcs]

But if they weren't intelligent then how would you explain the detail in their art which is lost in the following populations? Also as far as the "wiring" is concerned- generally brains with a lower neuron density in the outer regions (due to high CC) tend to be more efficient in thought processes, so cranial capacity helps in two ways in that sense. Also, seeing as how far they were spread out with such a low population, I think that it was likely because of their reclusive nature, probably another trait that can be associated with their intelligence?

Well, just like modern humans, even within the very same population, make art of different levels of details and complexity even without any major difference of genetics or intelligence. People didn't suddenly become "dumber" between the 1700s and the 1900s when all those intricacies and details of baroque and later neoclassical art disappeared and were replaced by much simpler lines and forms. Art techniques can be learned and unlearned, it doesn't have much to do with cranial capacity or levels of intelligence. I didn't say they weren't intelligent. I said there is nothing to suggest that they were significantly more intelligent than other human populations and later peoples that inhabited Europe.

Being reclusive wouldn't explain their lack of faster population growth, they had a lot of space between themselves to be as reclusive as they wished and still be hundreds of km apart from others. Besides, reclusiveness is not a great intelligence trait either, intrasocial and intersocial intelligence are also measured as important types of intelligence nowadays. Better social skills and social organization can literally be a matter of life or death, and it probably played some role in the demise of Neanderthals. You're essentially trying to find evidences of high intelligence in things that you are previously assuming as signs of high intelligence and you can't possibly know if they really existed (reclusive nature - what, because of a very low population density? Looks more like unsuccessful economic and demographic progress) or if they could be attributed to higher intelligence potential, and not merely to more effort in cultural learning and development of their artistic techniques, something within their grasp, but made possible culturally, not biologically. What they did was in fact nothing completely extraordinary for the capability of average humans with lower cranial capacity.

One of your points (low population density + supposed reclusive nature) is not strongly evidenced to indicate necessarily higher intelligence (are really people of harsh north Sibéria significantly more intelligent than people of overpopulated Northwestern Europe or East China, for instance?), and the other is falsified by later much more impressive art made by subsequent European populations with lower cranial capacity, therefore the link between art and higher intelligence assumed from higher cranial capacity seems weak in my opinion.

 

[markod]

That is not quite what my original point was about. What I tried to say is that sparse populations and a large cranial capacity (and intelligence) might have some correlation or a common cause. You can look at any point of history and arrive at a similar conclusion. Perhaps it was the harsh environment which only allowed the more clever people to survive and pushed the average values as high as they were, hence the more detailed art.

The Neanderthals must have been geniuses judging by their cranial capacities.

The smaller skulled Magdalenians produced far more impressive art than the Aurignacians in my opinion.

 

[Angela]

Maybe I just missed it, but I never saw an artist or art historian argue that Megalithic art is "worse" than Paleolithic art. It's just that Paleolithic art is very naturalistic, whereas Mesolithic art is very stylized, deliberately stylized, and Mesolithic art brings man into the picture.

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/prehistoric/mesolithic-art.htm
"Naturalistic vs. Stylistic art: I highly doubt the sculptors of the Archaic period in Greece were less "intelligent" than those of the succeeding "naturalistic" period.
http://www.essential-humanities.net/art-supplementary/realism-stylization/

In fact, the very idea of creating stylized art is very sophisticated.

Plus, even if that were true, why would it matter? Artistic ability is its own skill. I suppose you need average intelligence, but you certainly don't need a high IQ. That's a different set of skills.

 

[markod]

Are you serious? The Aurignacian cave art tends to be much more detailed even though they had fewer people doing that kind of stuff (due to low population in general).

Taste differ, but technically there are worlds between them. Look at the Font-de-Gaume paintings. The dynamic lines/intricate shading&colors make them look like contemporary stylized works.

 

[Ygorcs]

Taste differ, but technically there are worlds between them. Look at the Font-de-Gaume paintings. The dynamic lines/intricate shading&colors make them look like contemporary stylized works.

Indeed, not always a more naturalistic, realistic approach to art - which certainly requires more details and accuracy of proportions and so on - is much more complex than a more stylized and abstract style of art. Egyptian painting was famously much more stylized than Graeco-Roman painting, but I'm sure that didn't mean they were less intelligent. More recently the medieval paintings were much less naturalistic and detailed than the Renaissance paintings, even though the very same people, actually just a few generations later, were making them.

Also, some people are just more involved with visual arts, therefore they develop it more than others, and that's all. Some others have other interests, some of which may be simply missed by us because they don't last well (e.g. poetry, music, dance). Art is cultural, contingent, learned and evolved using the same brain capacity. We should not presume a people should always be operating at "maximum capacity". The kind of art made by Aurignacians is well within the grasp of any modern human population, so I don't think they should've been super-smart to be able to make those paintings (which in my opinion aren't better than the Magdalenian ones either).

 

[bicicleur 2]

Are you serious? The Aurignacian cave art tends to be much more detailed even though they had fewer people doing that kind of stuff (due to low population in general).

as I told above, Gravettians were more mobile than Aurignacians
Aurignacians stayed in their caves, they had time to make art, while Gravettians were on the move
in the end the Gravettians survived, and the Aurignacians not

 

[markod]

Indeed, not always a more naturalistic, realistic approach to art - which certainly requires more details and accuracy of proportions and so on - is much more complex than a more stylized and abstract style of art. Egyptian painting was famously much more stylized than Graeco-Roman painting, but I'm sure that didn't mean they were less intelligent. More recently the medieval paintings were much less naturalistic and detailed than the Renaissance paintings, even though the very same people, actually just a few generations later, were making them.
Also, some people are just more involved with visual arts, therefore they develop it more than others, and that's all. Some others have other interests, some of which may be simply missed by us because they don't last well (e.g. poetry, music, dance). Art is cultural, contingent, learned and evolved using the same brain capacity. We should not presume a people should always be operating at "maximum capacity". The kind of art made by Aurignacians is well within the grasp of any modern human population, so I don't think they should've been super-smart to be able to make those paintings (which in my opinion aren't better than the Magdalenian ones either).

I think Magdalenian art is more realistic than Aurignacian art though

In particular because they knew how to shade accurately, and because they used proper colors.

 

[Moi-même]

Looking at the overall map:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/a...id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0211562.g001

It makes me wonder what we are missing under the lower Po Valley, the Channel Valley, the Doggerland Valley, the Bay of Biscay's shore, all of which are now 100m under water nowadays. It's not to say there were 10,000 persons hiding in each of these spots, but there's room to boost the number by 50% at least. Somrthing like 2500 to 4500 Aurigacians.

 

[LeBrok]

Looking at the overall map:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/a...id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0211562.g001

It makes me wonder what we are missing under the lower Po Valley, the Channel Valley, the Doggerland Valley, the Bay of Biscay's shore, all of which are now 100m under water nowadays. It's not to say there were 10,000 persons hiding in each of these spots, but there's room to boost the number by 50% at least. Somrthing like 2500 to 4500 Aurigacians.

Good point. Could the final number be misleading because we can only find their remains in mountain caves?

 

[64logh]

I doubt this was common practice.
The Sungir burials show disabled persons living a long time.
They must have been supported and cared for by other members of the tribe.

They organized in bands, tribes are a post-sedentarization thing.