The Evolution of Intelligence

Abstract: How did the human species evolve the capacity not just to communicate complex ideas to one another but to hold such conversations from across the globe, using remote devices constructed from substances that do not exist in the natural world, the raw materials for which may have been hauled up from the bowels of the earth? How did we come to be so intelligent? Research at the interface of psychology, biology, anthropology, archaeology, and cognitive science is culminating in an increasingly sophisticated understanding of how human intelligence evolved. Studies of the brains of living humans and great apes and the intellectual abilities they support are enabling us to assess what is unique about human intelligence and what we share with our primate relatives. Examining the habitats and skeletons of our ancestors gives cues as to environmental, social, and anatomical factors that both constrain and enable the evolution of human intelligence. Relics of the past also have much to tell us about the thoughts, beliefs, and abilities of the individuals who invented and used them.