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 when reading Razib Khan’s account of the difference between Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe:

Though Neanderthals made effective tools, they were never standardized, skillfully and cunningly fashioned, yes, but always seeming to reflect creative choices by their individual makers. Tools created by our anatomically modern ancestors have a monotonous but efficient uniformity that distinguishes them from Neanderthal blades. In Slimak’s reading, the indigenous Neanderthals were individualistic artisans, while the intrusive modern humans were collective creatures, prone to producing lines of 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 are increasing hints that the decisive factor was their greater sociability, which allowed them to work together in larger cooperative groups:

Neanderthals famously had brains about 10% larger, on average than our own species, so it is unlikely that they were unintelligent. However, it is quite plausible that they had different cognitive strengths and were comparatively antisocial. And this antisociality is likely the cause of their greater socio-cultural stasis vis-à-vis the human populations coming out of Africa, who proved much more protean and changeable. . . . 

Anatomically modern humans spreading across Eurasia and into Australia clearly organized their societies differently from Neanderthals. Genetic results from sites in Upper Paleolithic Europe ~35,000 years ago show the bare minimum of within-band inbreeding, with mates consistently being wholly unrelated to each other, which requires access to widespread social networks. . . .

And yet evidence is now accumulating that Neanderthal social groups were both smaller and more isolated 50,000 years ago than our ancestors’ were. They simply seem to have been less social than their African cousins.

In a previous post, I argued that America’s economic success was partly due to its ability to assimilate highly talented people from all over the world. Perhaps the same was true of early modern humans.  Indeed, modern descendants of early Eurasians are roughly 2% Neanderthal, and the genetic share was probably at least 10% around the time Neanderthals went extinct.  (Of course these events happened in a very different world, and we cannot assume that this example has important implications for modern political issues like immigration.)  

The comment about the intelligence of Neanderthal artisans vs. modern human cooperators reminds me a bit of similar comparisons in the modern world.  Compare an English worker in a Smithian pin factory circa 1770 to a Native American living in what is now Montana.  Which was more intelligent, in the sense of capable of doing a wide range of complex tasks?

Khan ends with some interesting comments on how the intelligence of the modern world is embedded in the institutions of society:

Because of information technology, the modern world is to a great extent a collective brain, with synergies of innovation across many societies driving aggregate gains in productivity. Maybe this sort of transition, or cultural phase change, was also what marked the rise of our species as lone survivors, a collective borg-brain in contrast to our quirkier Neanderthal cousins with their isolated geniuses and bespoke creations. Rather than individual intelligence, a cultural shift to a collective brain may have occurred. Perhaps IUP humans pioneered mass-production, forgoing individual social status for the more lasting victories of the tribe.

Read the whole thing.