Holocene Selection for Variants Associated With General Cognitive Ability: Comparing Ancient and Modern Genomes.

Area of Science:

• Human Evolution
• Population Genetics
• Paleogenomics

Background:

• Holocene populations experienced microevolutionary changes.
• Agrarian and urban transitions may have driven culture-gene co-evolution.
• Directional selection might have favored genetic variants for higher general cognitive ability (GCA).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if general cognitive ability (GCA) increased during the Holocene.
• To compare genetic data from ancient Eurasian populations with modern European genomes.
• To identify evolutionary trends in cognitive-associated genetic variants.

Main Methods:

• Comparative genomics analysis of 99 ancient Eurasian genomes (4.56–1.21 kyr BP) and 503 modern European genomes.
• Utilized three distinct cognitive polygenic scores (130 SNP, 9 SNP, 11 SNP) for analysis.
• Employed Monte Carlo modeling to assess the significance of polygenic scores against random SNP sets.

Main Results:

• Modern genomes showed significant advantages across all three cognitive polygenic scores compared to ancient genomes (ORs = 0.92, 0.81, 0.81).
• The developed polygenic scores outperformed random SNP scores (76.4%–84.6%).
• A trend of increasing positive allele counts over 3.25 kyr was observed in a subsample of ancient genomes (r = 0.22, p = 0.04).

Conclusions:

• The findings support the hypothesis that general cognitive ability (GCA) has risen in human populations during the Holocene.
• Evidence suggests directional selection acting on cognitive traits in response to cultural shifts.
• Paleogenomic data provides insights into the microevolutionary trajectory of human cognitive capacities.