UST’ISHIM MAN HAD HIGHER GENOTYPIC INTELLIGENCE THAN TODAY EUROPEANS AND EAST ASIANS (II)

Demange et al (2020) published an interesting study concerning the genetic architecture of cognitive and non-cognitive skills of educational attainment.

By the lead SNP published by Demange, I found 128 in the genome of Ust’Ishim man: 52 SNP related to non-cognitive and 76 related to cognitive skills of EDU. For 56 of this 128 SNP, the derived alleles increase EDU: 28 SNP increase non-cognitive skills and 28 increase cognitive skills of EDU. Ust’Ishim is homozygous for the ancestral allele in 8 and he is homozygous for the derived allele in 2 cases by the 28 SNP that increase non-cognitive skills. Ust’Ishim is homozygous for the ancestral allele in 5, and homozygous for the derived allele in 2 cases by the 28 SNP that increase cognitive skills.

 

Here are the polygenic scores for this derived alleles:

 

POLY_COG_Ust’Ishim = 0.4464

POLY_COG_EAS = 0.3994

POLY_COG_EUR = 0.4130

 

POLY_non-COG_Ust’Ishim = 0.3929

POLY_non-COG_EAS = 0.4101

POLY_non-COG_EUR = 0.4728

 

POLY_COG+non-COG_Ust’Ishim = 0.4196

POLY_COG+non-COG_EAS = 0.4047

POLY_COG+non-COG_EUR = 0.4431

 

We can see there was selection against cognitive skills since Upper Paleolithic, and there was selection for non-cognitive skills related to educational attainment during the same period. There was selection for domestication and selection against intelligence, in line with the decrease of the brain size of Eurasians since Upper Paleolithic.

Demange found that POLY_non-COG somewhat predicts the IQ, but only because a high polygenic score is associated with more education, and this increases the phenotypic intelligence. Also POLY_non-COG predicts better than POLY_COG the parental socioeconomic status, and this is related too with more education in offspring.

Upper Paleolithic Eurasians had higher genotypic intelligence than today Eurasians.

 

REFERENCES

Demange, P.A. et al (2020) Investigating the Genetic Architecture of Non-Cognitive Skills Using GWAS-by-Subtraction. bioRxiv. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.14.905794 .