Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Africa Modern man a wimp says anthropologist

I posted this on the Campfire, but put it here too. I'd be interested in hearing from those with experience with African locals....

Modern wimps

LONDON (Reuters) - Many prehistoric Australian aboriginals could have outrun world 100 and 200 meters record holder Usain Bolt in modern conditions.

Some Tutsi men in Rwanda exceeded the current world high jump record of 2.45 meters during initiation ceremonies in which they had to jump at least their own height to progress to manhood.

Any Neanderthal woman could have beaten former bodybuilder and current California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in an arm wrestle.

These and other eye-catching claims are detailed in a book by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister entitled "Manthropology" and provocatively sub-titled "The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male."

McAllister sets out his stall in the opening sentence of the prologue.

"If you're reading this then you -- or the male you have bought it for -- are the worst man in history.

"No ifs, no buts -- the worst man, period...As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet."

Delving into a wide range of source material McAllister finds evidence he believes proves that modern man is inferior to his predecessors in, among other fields, the basic Olympic athletics disciplines of running and jumping.

His conclusions about the speed of Australian aboriginals 20,000 years ago are based on a set of footprints, preserved in a fossilized claypan lake bed, of six men chasing prey.

FLEET-FOOTED ABORIGINALS

An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge. Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 meters record of 9.69 seconds at last year's Beijing Olympics.

In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.

"We can assume they are running close to their maximum if they are chasing an animal," he said.

"But if they can do that speed of 37 kph on very soft ground I suspect there is a strong chance they would have outdone Usain Bolt if they had all the advantages that he does.

"We can tell that T8 is accelerating toward the end of his tracks."

McAllister said it was probable that any number of T8's contemporaries could have run as fast.

"We have to remember too how incredibly rare these fossilizations are," he said. "What are the odds that you would get the fastest runner in Australia at that particular time in that particular place in such a way that was going to be preserved?"

Turning to the high jump, McAllister said photographs taken by a German anthropologist showed young men jumping heights of up to 2.52 meters in the early years of last century.

STARK DECLINE

"It was an initiation ritual, everybody had to do it. They had to be able to jump their own height to progress to manhood," he said.

"It was something they did all the time and they lived very active lives from a very early age. They developed very phenomenal abilities in jumping. They were jumping from boyhood onwards to prove themselves."

McAllister said a Neanderthal woman had 10 percent more muscle bulk than modern European man. Trained to capacity she would have reached 90 percent of Schwarzenegger's bulk at his peak in the 1970s.

"But because of the quirk of her physiology, with a much shorter lower arm, she would slam him to the table without a problem," he said.

Manthropology abounds with other examples:

* Roman legions completed more than one-and-a-half marathons a day carrying more than half their body weight in equipment.

* Athens employed 30,000 rowers who could all exceed the achievements of modern oarsmen.

* Australian aboriginals threw a hardwood spear 110 meters or more (the current world javelin record is 98.48 ).

McAllister said it was difficult to equate the ancient spear with the modern javelin but added: "Given other evidence of Aboriginal man's superb athleticism you'd have to wonder whether they couldn't have taken out every modern javelin event they entered."

Why the decline?

"We are so inactive these days and have been since the industrial revolution really kicked into gear," McAllister replied. "These people were much more robust than we were.

"We don't see that because we convert to what things were like about 30 years ago. There's been such a stark improvement in times, technique has improved out of sight, times and heights have all improved vastly since then but if you go back further it's a different story.

"At the start of the industrial revolution there are statistics about how much harder people worked then.

"The human body is very plastic and it responds to stress. We have lost 40 percent of the shafts of our long bones because we have much less of a muscular load placed upon them these days.

"We are simply not exposed to the same loads or challenges that people were in the ancient past and even in the recent past so our bodies haven't developed. Even the level of training that we do, our elite athletes, doesn't come close to replicating that.

"We wouldn't want to go back to the brutality of those days but there are some things we would do well to profit from."

Birdwatcher

Do you think apeman squatted when he went potty, or did he just let her fly as he walked??

Everybody squats, or did.

Most westerners have lost the ability to comfortably squat, on account of we usually sit down to poop into a bowl of clean, drinking-quality water, often scented.

I'd guess this loss of that ability is reflected in the ways our knee and ankle joints have grown as we grew up (in the same way that shoes permanently shape your toes). I'll bet an acheologist could separate us "sitters" from our ancestral "squatters" on the basis of our leg bones alone.

A real shame, being able to comfortably squat for long periods of time while watching for game and such would be very useful in the woods.

Birdwatcher

Maybe your right, who know? But seems to me that apeman would mimic the animals that he hunted. I think the squatting came from hanging around in trees, because he was perched on branches and a big cat was wanting to eat his aaass. LOL

Let's see. Running like a deer vs. living indoors, living to 85 (maybe), getting a drink of water any time you want without going to the stream, doing something besides hunting-gathering to fill up time, light to work and play by at night. Hmmmm. Wimp wins! (There's reasons why we changed.)

Wimmin squat! Guess I'm a throwback!

In reality, all kidding aside, I have noticed such a trend..My grandfather was tougher than my dad, My dad was tougher than me, and I'm tougher than my sons..I dont' mean stronger necessarily but because of life styles our needs and necessities change.

My grandad could travel horse back from one end of the Nueces Strip to the other with a pound of salt pork and some coffee beans, be there for 3 months sleeping on the ground or a horse blanket scouting for Mexican bandits on his territory. He was a Texas Ranger, even in his last years he was tough as wang leather...My dad and uncles could survive a 30 day elk hunt in Colorado in a foot of snow sleeping on the ground with a big tarp under and over their blanket bedrolls..The had no need for down mummy sleeping bags, hi dollar boots, polertec clothing, only long wool underwear and blanket lined Levi jackets and a pair of cowboy boots with spurs that grew there, but they spent most of their lives outdoors, my mom and dad lived under a chuck wagon for 5 or 6 years after they were married, my brother and I were born there....Even today I can live pretty well with very little outdoors, for about a week, maybe 10 days, but I don;t like to do that anymore.

My boys want, need a wall tent, more food, and better clothing. They are tough kids and good hunters but something has been lost along the way by easy living, and by comparison they are ranch kids and worked their butts off growing up. Wimps, they certainly are not and I would not suggest anyone look'em in the eye and suggest such! If so bring a change of shorts with you!

I think we lose a little toughness with each generation..and many have reached a point on being totally unable to survive a stumped toe!..True, they are liberal democrats for the most part.:)

"If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough."

Conversely, if you not tough, you better not be dumb. Perhpas we have so progressed. (But I think we, as a species, probably should work toward getting tougher again; based on some of the "dumb" that seems to be becoming more rampant.)

I guess that is the price we pay for having low early childhood mortality and doubling average lifespan. Through science and medicine we have chosen quantity over quality, but I like our choice since I am one of the ones that would not have survive my first year without modern medicine.

Just to clarify, we ain't talking cavemen or apes, but us, a couple of centuries back. And an average life span is just that, the average age at death. People didn't get OLD faster, in fact, if they were still alive they remained of necessity more active into old age than we do.

Anyhow, here's a guy who grew up in the woods, commonly covering long miles a day on foot, frequently with little or no provisions. Clearly he didn't grow up in shoes or using sit-down toilets neither, and hence has anatomically normal knees, ankles and feet.



I wish I could relax flat-footed in that position, we had a Japanise exchange student could do that routinely. In the woods I wouldn't need to worry near as much about bug, mud, or a tree to lean against when I have to sit instead.

Getting down into and getting up from that position is a whole lot faster and quieter than sitting down or getting up too.

Birdwatcher

If you look at the skulls of Neanderthal man through to modern Homo Sapiens you will see that the brain size has increased with evolution. As brain size increased, man used his intellect more and brawn less. As muscle is used less, the bone onto which it is attached, decreases in mass. So we are generally becoming smaller as our technology does the work for us and we have more leisure time.Im making a generalisation here, there are allways execptions to the rule.

What are we going to look like, far into the future, if this trend is projected? All head and small bodies?

Neanderthal's brain was larger than modern man, though not as developed. Brain size is an interesting comparison, and on it's surface would seem to indicate intelligence(or lack of intelligence). The fact is that, although somewhat relevant, it is not the sole factor determining intellect. More cerebellum developement in modern man.

Be it as it may, I still will take a M-70 in 30-06 and be a so called wimp, vs what the cave man had. never mind not having to die from what killed him. The modern Soldier carries just as much as a Roman Legionaire, the only difference is that the Roman would do a march of 30 miles in a day and he would be exausted at the end of it, while a guy from the 3rd ID would ride be rested and ready to fight day or night, or fly in i helicopters. He would also get way better care for his wounds. It would take a Roman Legionaire all of a week to get the hang of an M-4. Another BS attack on modern life.

???

Odd how quickly folks get all defensive. Seems like it happens on the "Africa" forum quicker than any other.

Remember I am talking about our forebearers too. I believe this guy wounded on the line at Gettysburg was 72.



Ain't too many modern-day Apaches fer example could outdistance over the long haul on foot pursuing cavalry mounted on grain-fed horses.

And those Roman legions were covering closer to 40 miles a day. Fifty miles on foot in a day seems to be a reasonable ballpark figure of human endurance. I have heard it quoted for Scottish Highlanders out on a raid, that senior (age thirty and up) Zulu regiment running to attack the British at Rouke's Drift, and often with respect to the performance of men, women and children during the Apache Wars.

And yes, these people did fight the next day, rested or not.

Anyhow, don't take my word for it, read the accounts of Western Spec. Ops-type units in various places and times around the World who worked closely with the natives at war.

Birdwatcher

Okay let me rephrase my response. You can not take statements like the ones about our forebearers vs. us as simple facts. When you have a situation where only 50% for example survive to adulthood then generally those will be the toughest. Therefore the "average" would be tougher than if everybody had survived. If you wanted to make comparisons you would have to compare the best of then to the best of now. The Roman armies are not a good example. They represented the best and strongest. Even the lowest ranking legionaries were well paid compared to our soldiers and at end of their service they receive land. That attracted the strongest.

I would put it that their environment was/is more physically demanding than is ours. Therefore being in shape to meet those demands becomes the norm. If they had our conveniences, they woulda averaged overweight and out of shape too.

I myself do bear the distinction of having handily won an actual five-mile footrace between villages in Africa against my African students, me twenty-four and real skinny at the time and them between the ages fifteen and nineteen. Though they were barefoot soccer players and in good shape, that was a case of them mostly being unfamiliar with running that distance and exausting themselves way too early trying not to be beat by me.

But, I do recall a little maybe-ten year-old barefoot village girl one day who matched me step for step over a fast-paced two miles . And yer average village woman could carry more on her head than I would be comfortable with on my back (you could tell the Africans who grew up in the sticks, they all had wonderfully upright postures, like fashion models )

It ain't rocket science. If our days were filled with hard physical labor, and if we had to walk or run most everywhere we went, most of us would be in better shape too.

Birdwatcher

So what if we're wimps? We can outdo any of those more primitive people by using our brains, learning things, and inventing things.

Who cares about throwing a spear 110 yards? I can shoot a rifle bullet three times farther.

Who cares if I can't run 43 kph? I can drive my car many times faster, and don't get fatigued after the first half mile or so.

So it goes. And I'm a lot better off if I get a tooth ache or appendicitis, to say nothing of cancer.

Neanderthal women stronger than modern males? So what? So are female gorillas (and just about as good looking).

Wherever there has been a test, we wimps have conquered the primitives, after all.

Now as for modern Africans, I have noticed some differences. First, they can walk barefoot over some bad pebbles. I have seen them prefer to walk barefoot even when given shoes. Next, I marvel at their heat tolerance. My trackers all wore heavy looking coveralls and drank little water, while I wore shorts, an open front shirt, and sweated like crazy in the heat.

That said, their life expectancy, at least in Zimbabwe, is just under 35 years. I prefer being a "wimp."

Those more primitive people were us.

I'd guess the real trick being keeping the ability to run at 43 kph AND being able to hit something with a rifle at 330 yards.

No one I have heard of, primitive or modern, is faster than a friend of mine that works for the State Highway Department...He gets off work at 5:00 and is home by 4:30.

That is a part of the Einstein relativity theory. The farther you are from earth's rotation the slower you age. So with them having their brain so far up their keester it is somewhere in Mars. So as the earth rotates faster (125,000 mph)than Mars (80,000 mph)since it is close to the sun. Earth time speeds ahead.

I also noted that it took 3 government workers to work a shovel.
I don't know where it fits in this discussion but it is still an interesting note.
LOL

I have some photos of some of the first N Korean prisoners of war from 1950. They are extremely muscle bound and have not an ounce of fat on them.

Our troops over from Japan from their mama-sans and life of leisure were run down after they "attempted" to "Bug out."

The N Koreans lived on two rice balls a day and could climb mountain after mountain and literally march around the clock.

Our troops simply could not deal with them at first.

When large numbers of both sides were captured, diet was the key to survival. The N Koreans could continue to live on rice balls, though their stools reportedly were hard as cement and were clogging the sewer system outlets to the sea. When vegetables, fruits, and fish were added, they thrived even more, but did not have to have that food.

The N Koreans were frustrated as Americans were dying in large numbers on the rice diet. They could not understand why S Koreans were surviving alongside the Americans. The American doctors knew Americans had to have vegetables and protein (the occasional stray skinnie collie)when they could find it. Many Americans, especially the higher ranks simply laid down, gave up and did die. However, the N Koreans were not pleased about this. It was an embarrassment.

Noting Chinese babies from Nanking in WW II and other Asian cultures, the zygotic arches and round healthy babies nursing from a mother who had only rice, indicated, too, the difference in our bodies from race to race.