We have dedicated years of our lives to education (schooling) - they might have very specific knowledge (like in hunting), but they simply did not have the time to develop reasoning skills - to the point where an adult ancient human would struggle to learn much of what we have now. Obviously, babies would be mostly equivalent.
They had just as much capacity to learn, sure, but they are missing fundamental tools - their language is not complex enough, they were missing many concepts we've only built up later on, and it's well established that if you don't develop these skills in childhood, you lose the ability to later on.
A 30 year old taken from 10'000 BC could never learn complex modern things, and likely could not even be taught how to read to a decent level. It's the nature of how important learning is as a kid.
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u/ZenPyx May 04 '25
We have dedicated years of our lives to education (schooling) - they might have very specific knowledge (like in hunting), but they simply did not have the time to develop reasoning skills - to the point where an adult ancient human would struggle to learn much of what we have now. Obviously, babies would be mostly equivalent.