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Low IQs. These would depend on the civilisation as well. For instance most black civilisations were in lower stages of development compared to Eurasian ones. So, there would have have been less need for High IQ persons around. It would be better to have stronger, quicker, more athletic people. That's why athletics is now mostly dominated by blacks. Indians, on the other hand are not very good at sports, Chinese are not good at sports involving huge amounts of strength (rugby etc.). Why? Becuase these were highly developed civilisations with 3 to 5 thousand years of encouraging learning. ditto for Jews. Intelligent people in Israel, India and China would become Priests, Brahman Priests, Confucian priests. As they were smart, their generations would become smarter over generations (a lot of inbreeding too! but mostly smart folks marryign smart folks).

As intelligence was the key to a better life, it was encouraged. That's why Chinese and Indians and Jews have, on average higher IQs than those of Western Eurasian and African descent.

Of course this IS painting with a broad brush. There WILL be highly intelligent blacks and whites and Highly stupid Jews, chinese and Indians. The averages do not determine the net worth of any individual.

Actually, I have to disagree with your analysis. You are using the results to explain the effect. It is unlikely that civilisation caused an increase in average IQ, but more likely that a higher IQ brought about greater civilisations.

The reason for this is mostly due to breeding patterns amongst classes. Lower class laborers would have more children to help them survive. Artisans, clergy and other professionals, military or craftsmen would not see any improvement in their lifestyle by having a dozen children. In addition their wives would be more likely to have both the knowledge and access to birth control that the lower classes would not.

Because of this effect, it is highly unlikly that the average IQ increased over time by more than a few points. The numbers are simply too bottom heavy. In all civilisations, even our own until the modern age, the vast majority of people were farmers. This isn't to say they were all dumb farmers, but it does refute your theory that there was upward pressure on the average IQ due to civilisation.

However, there has been a dramatic change due to modern invention, which is that civilisation is no longer 95% farmer, 5% professional. Today's civilisation is almost entirely professional, service or skilled labor. Due to this modernization effect, most people have stopped having more than 2 children. Today we see this effect most dramatically in modern western countries where the birth rate has fallen below replacement in most European nations and Japan.

This has effectively increased the average IQ, which has been measured. So, to put it bluntly, our average IQ is rising because people with lower IQ's are no longer outbreeding people with higher IQs.

If we accept the data that the Chinese have a higher IQ than Europeans, the most probable conclusion is that at some time between their divergence from a single ancestor to their dispersion in separate land masses something happened which caused them to get smarter overall (average). This could have been a natural disaster or it could have been that those who decided to turn northeast instead of northwest were just slightly smarter. It is interesting that the studies I have seen always say "Asian", "white" and then a few other groups, however, "Asian" and "white" is quite broad. For example, the average IQ of Scotland and Ireland is closer to the "Asian" number than the "white" number. Another example would be the enormous difference in all fields of achievement between say, Japanese and Philipinos, both "Asians" living on homogenous islands.

Of course this is simply a hypothesis based on limited information. Merely mentioning race and IQ in the same sentence is enough to send most liberals into various states of apoplexy. There very well could be a study which proves some strain of DNA increases inventiveness. Who knows at this point, since we only have a few puzzle pieces to a huge picture. I'd take back every word if there were a single peer reviewed study which disproves it.