Do polygenic scores track the long arc of human progress itself?

When I tested it with ancient DNA, the result was harder to dismiss than I expected. Educational-attainment polygenic scores do not just rise through time. They also track civilization stage.

In the post, I use ancient genomes spanning roughly 45,000 years and ask a stricter question than the usual one. Not whether scores increase from earlier to later samples, but whether they remain higher in populations occupying more complex social worlds even after absolute date is controlled.

The answer is yes. The effect is strongest in the full sample, but it does not disappear even within the Holocene alone.

That opens up a much bigger possibility: polygenic scores may be tracking not just chronology, but part of the long developmental gradient from foraging bands to farming societies, metalworking states, and more complex forms of organized life.