Well, Homo Floresiensis went through a similar phase, and the cultural toolkits we see among them are no less-sophisticated for it (and no more—it’s hard to say how directly-relevant brain size is to intelligence, and it’s much harder to discern the impact of intelligence in potential form on paleolithic or pre-sapiens lifestyle.
I have to say I agree with Gregory Cochran’s scepticism of this. Homo Floresiensis had basically Chimp-sized brains. One would need stronger than usual evidence that they did in fact use them, before we can take that as a given. Has it for example been ruled out that the tools found where brought to the cave by say other humans hunting and eating them?
Floresiensis had a total brain volume in the chimp/australopithecus range, yes, but the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (associated with higher cognition in humans) is about the same size as it is in anatomically-modern homo sapiens. Their habitation sites show all the usual hominin features: fire, bones with cut marks, stone tools of comparable sophistication to contemporary h. sapiens with four times the brain volume—and the prey species associated with the sites, stegodontids, would necessitate cooperative hunts.
This could also partly explain the Fermi paradox. May be difficult not to de-evolve too early, for a technological civilization to bloom.
Well, Homo Floresiensis went through a similar phase, and the cultural toolkits we see among them are no less-sophisticated for it (and no more—it’s hard to say how directly-relevant brain size is to intelligence, and it’s much harder to discern the impact of intelligence in potential form on paleolithic or pre-sapiens lifestyle.
I have to say I agree with Gregory Cochran’s scepticism of this. Homo Floresiensis had basically Chimp-sized brains. One would need stronger than usual evidence that they did in fact use them, before we can take that as a given. Has it for example been ruled out that the tools found where brought to the cave by say other humans hunting and eating them?
Floresiensis had a total brain volume in the chimp/australopithecus range, yes, but the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (associated with higher cognition in humans) is about the same size as it is in anatomically-modern homo sapiens. Their habitation sites show all the usual hominin features: fire, bones with cut marks, stone tools of comparable sophistication to contemporary h. sapiens with four times the brain volume—and the prey species associated with the sites, stegodontids, would necessitate cooperative hunts.