“Cro-Magnons would be popular even today”: The cruel truth I realized after having an AI compare our specs

This guy would be popular even today, wouldn't he?

That was my first thought the moment I saw a reconstruction of a Cro-Magnon.

“This guy would be popular even today, wouldn't he?”

And I also thought this:“He is strong.”

Have you ever seen one in a museum or a documentary? The face of an early Homo sapiens who lived in Ice Age Europe, reconstructed with flesh added to the skeleton. That face, looking straight at you from the other side of the screen.

The skeleton has thickness. The contours are decisive. If you put a suit on him and he walked through a train station ticket gate, no one would realize he was a prehistoric human. On the contrary, he has that kind of “presence” that suggests he might be a professional athlete, or perhaps a business executive who has survived countless crises.

Just to be clear, this isn't me looking down on them and saying, “For ancient humans, they’re not bad.”

To begin with, I don't think“past humans = inferior versions.”

We learn from history. And yet,

There is one thing that has been bothering me here.

We modern people are incredibly enthusiastic about learning from history.

We learn management from the decision-making of Sengoku warlords. We are awed by the infrastructure design of ancient Rome. We bow our heads to the art of the Renaissance. “Learn from history” has become a catchphrase for being cultured.

However,

we try to learn almost nothing from the early Homo sapiens who left no written records.

We learn from Sengoku warlords, but not from them. Where on earth does this difference come from?

The answer is probably simple:because they didn't leave behind any writing.

This is a little different from “looking down on them.” It’s worse than that.They aren't even considered; they are quietly omitted from the list entirely. Labels like savage, primitive, and low-civilization are slapped on them first, and the whole box is tucked away at the back of the shelf before anyone even opens it to see what's inside.

What I want to do is open this box once again.

I tried typing, "Please compare the specs."

So, I asked an AI a simple question. I didn't intend to debunk anything, nor did I have any deep intentions. I just wanted to check the facts.

What came back was an honor student's answer.

Brain capacity for Cro-Magnons was about 1,600cc. Modern humans average about 1,350cc. Huh, theirs was larger. Their skeletons were sturdy, and their physical abilities were high. I read up to that point thinking, "I see, I see."

And then, the AI concluded like this.

——At this moment, a small sense of discomfort sprouted.

It's neatly summarized. Too neatly summarized. "Their bodies are superior, but our civilization is superior. Therefore, overall, we are better," that kind of categorization.

The moment I heard it, I almost let it slide, thinking, "Well, I guess so." But something remained on my tongue. Isn't this categorization a bit sloppy?

The word "specs" starts expanding on its own

As I explored the source of the snag, I noticed something interesting.

The word "specs" had expanded on its own during the conversation.

At first, when I said "specs," what I had in mind were height, muscle strength, and skeletal structure. Physical performance. That was all I intended.

However, as the comparison progressed, other things were mixed into the list one after another. Brain capacity. Hunting and gathering techniques. The ability to create tools from scratch using bones and stones. The art of cave paintings. The mechanism of oral tradition to pass knowledge to the next generation without having a written language. The ability to adapt to the extreme environment of the Ice Age.

Before I knew it, "specs" had expanded from physical performance to the ability to build an entire civilization from scratch.

Here, the AI's categorization from earlier begins to crumble.

It says, "Their bodies are superior, but our civilization is superior," but in the first place, should the ability to build a civilization be placed on the side of the body or the side of the civilization?

There is no doubt that modern civilization is complex and advanced. However, that complexity does not exist within the brains of the individuals living today. It is something that has been outsourced and accumulated in libraries, the internet, systems, infrastructure, and the division of labor.

In other words, most of what the AI praised as “modern human specs” was not the performance of the individual as a modern human, but the performance of the system that modern humans are riding on.

Cro-Magnons did not have that system. There were no libraries, no search engines, no schools, and no teachers.

Yet, they created tools, left behind art, designed hunts, and passed knowledge across generations. From scratch, using only their own bodies and minds.

Does this really settle the matter by saying “they only had their bodies”?

Are we misreading “no writing” as “no substance”?

Here, I would like you to imagine two questions.

First. In a life spent searching for tomorrow's food, is there any “leisure time” to draw pictures?

We tend to think of cave paintings as “products of abundance.” We assume that culture only grows once we no longer have to worry about food.

But their murals were painted right in the middle of a hunter-gatherer life during the Ice Age. In a world where tomorrow's food was not guaranteed, they went out of their way to enter the depths of dark caves, make pigments, and draw beasts.

This was not “drawn because they had the leisure.” There is something there that they could not help but draw, even in the midst of having no leisure.The modern assumption that “culture is known only after food and clothing are sufficient” might actually be an excuse made in hindsight.

Second. Can you “show” someone from a different settlement how to crack a stone and have them reproduce the stone tool?

Making stone tools is a much more advanced technology than one might imagine. Which stone to choose, at what angle, and with what force to strike to get the desired blade. They transmitted this to other settlements and had it reproduced without any writing or blueprints.

There were no specifications. No manuals. All there was was demonstration, hand movements, oral tradition, and the sharing of the moment.

We moderns are convinced that “it won't be communicated unless it's left in a document.” Meeting minutes, manuals, handover materials. We believe from the bottom of our hearts that knowledge disappears if it is not put into writing.

But they, without having an external device called writing, transferred advanced technical specifications from body to body. This was not low-context, but rather a world of extreme high-context.Everything was carried in context, relationships, and the body.

Have we been misreading “no writing” as “no substance”?

…Here, I want you to recall another incident that happened in a different place. It is an incident about what the side that “did not have” writing did the moment they “got their hands on” it.

The Japanese, given Kanji, suddenly wrote the Manyoshu

Once upon a time, the Japanese did not have writing. Then, Kanji came from the continent.

What did the Japanese people do once they acquired writing? They didn't just start clumsily writing practical sentences—they suddenly wrote the Manyoshu.

From the Emperor to the border guards, sophisticated and delicate wordplay and emotional expression gushed out like a dam breaking the moment they gained the written word.

Of course, this is not a story about a strict chronology. Both the arrival of writing and the compilation of works took a long time. What I want to say here is not about the precision of the process, but this: 'Having no writing' does not mean 'having no substance.' They just lacked the vessel; the content was already full. Writing was merely a faucet to let out the richness that was already there.

Now then. If we were to hand the faucet of the modern era to a Cro-Magnon, what would come gushing out?

With the same intensity that the Manyoshu gushed out.

Replacing the labels

Having come this far, what I want to do has become clear.

I don't mean to assert that Cro-Magnons were 'a completely superior version of modern humans.' I have no interest in such sloppy contrarianism.

It's just that the labels currently attached are too crude.

Primitive. Low-civilization. Savage. — I want to peel off these three labels.

And I want to replace them with these:

That they were handsome is obvious at a glance when looking at the reconstructions. That they were high-context is because they carried technology and culture without writing. That they were survivors is because they lived through the Ice Age without a system.

Just as the yardstick that 'we are superior in every way' is nonsense, the yardstick that 'they are inferior in every way' is also nonsense. Both decide the answer before even looking.

What I want to do is wipe the slate clean of the answers decided before looking. That is all.

By the way, if they were truly 'unbroken humans'...

If we were to drop that sample exactly as it is into the modern world—what score would AI give their intelligence?

We will check that answer next time. I intend to start with one specific number that the AI churned out.

When I saw that number, I laughed quite genuinely.

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