Ashkenazi intelligence refers to a controversial theory asserting the higher general intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews, the Jews of Central an Eastern European origin who are the descendants of Jews who settled in the Rhineland beginning about the year 800. Many anthropologists are critics of claims that intelligence differs among races, contending that while racial categorizations may be marked by phenotypic traits, the idea of race itself, and actual divisions of persons into races, are social constructs.