http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2614780/How-FARMERS-fitter-athletes-Human-strength-speed-peaked-7-300-years-ago-declining-rapidly.htmlHow
modern humans have become WEAKLINGS compared with our ancient ancestors who could outrun and outlift today's top athletes
Human leg bones have grown weaker since farming was invented
Scientists found bone structure declined after agriculture emerged
Male farmers 7,300 years ago had legs of cross-country runners
But just 3,000 years later, they had legs comparable to 'sedentary' students
By Sara Malm and Ellie Zolfagharifard
Published: 06:10 EST, 28 April 2014 | Updated: 07:45 EST, 28 April 2014
Mo Farah would have had some tough competition from
ancient farmers living 7,300 years ago.
Scientists claim if they were to cross paths,
our ancestors would have been capable of outrunning some of the world’s most talented athletes.
That's according to recent research by Cambridge University which reveals just
how far our fitness has fallen in just a couple of millennia‘Even our most highly trained athletes pale in comparison to these ancestors of ours,’ Dr Colin Shaw told Outside Magazine. ‘We’re certainly weaker than we used to be.’
The study looked at skeletons dating back to around 5,300 BC with the most recent to 850 AD - a time span of 6,150 years.
It then compared the bones to that of Cambridge University students, and found
the leg bones of male farmers 5,300 BC were just as good as those of highly-trained cross-country runners.
But just 3,000 years later, the study found our ancestors had leg bone structures closer to that of the Netflix-watching generation.
When our ancestors made the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural ones, their lower limb strength and overall mobility decreased.
Men were most affected by the change, which suggested a reduction in mobility and loading. In other words, they were covering less distance on foot and carrying out lighter physical tasks.
‘My results suggest that, following the transition to agriculture in central Europe, males were more affected than females by cultural and technological changes that
reduced the need for long-distance travel or heavy physical work,’ said lead researcher Alison Macintosh, from the department of archaeology and anthropology at Cambridge University.
‘This also means that,
as people began to specialise in tasks other than just farming and food production, such as metalworking, fewer people were regularly doing tasks that were very strenuous on their legs.’
...

Experts claim that
people today are 10 per cent smaller and shorter than their hunter-gatherer ancestors...
When
comparing samples from male farmers 2,300 B.C. with modern students, researchers found they had the same strength as 'sedentary' undergraduates...
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http://phys.org/news175332184.htmlModern men are wimps, according to new bookOct 21, 2009 by Lin Edwards weblog
PhysOrg.com) -- A new book claims even modern athletes could not run as fast, jump as high, or have been nearly as strong as our predecessors.
The book,
Manthropology: The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male, by Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister, describes many examples of
the inadequacy of the modern male, calling them as a class, "the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet."
Given spiked running shoes, Indigenous Australians of 20,000 years ago could have beaten today's world record for running 100 and 200 meters. As recently as last century, some Tutsi males in Rwanda could have easily beaten the current high jump world record, and bodybuilders such as Arnold Schwarzenegger would have been no match in an arm wrestle with a Neanderthal woman.
Twenty thousand years ago six male Australian Aborigines chasing prey left footprints in a muddy lake shore that became fossilized. Analysis of
the footprints shows one of them was running at 37 kph (23 mph), only 5 kph slower than Usain Bolt was traveling at when he ran the 100 meters in world record time of 9.69 seconds in Beijing last year. But Bolt had been the recipient of modern training, and had the benefits of spiked running shoes and a rubberized track, whereas the Aboriginal man was running barefoot in soft mud.
Given the modern conditions, the man, dubbed T8, could have reached speeds of 45 kph, according to McAllister.
McAllister also presents as evidence of his thesis photographs taken by a German anthropologist early in the twentieth century. The photographs
showed Tutsi initiation ceremonies in which young men had to jump their own height in order to be accepted as men. Some of them jumped as high as 2.52 meters, which is higher than the current world record of 2.45 meters.McAllister, interviewed in his temporary residence in Cambridge, UK, also said
women of the extinct hominids such as the Neanderthals carried around 10 percent more muscle than modern European men, and with training could have reached 90 percent of the bulk of Arnold Schwarzenegger at his physical prime. Her shorter lower arm would have given her a great advantage in an arm wrestle, and she could easily have slammed his arm to the table.
...
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https://www.sciencemag.org/content/343/6172/747.abstractScience 14 February 2014:
Vol. 343 no. 6172 pp. 747-751
DOI: 10.1126/science.1243518
•Research Article
A Genetic Atlas of Human Admixture HistoryGarrett Hellenthal1, George B. J. Busby2, Gavin Band3, James F. Wilson4, Cristian Capelli2, Daniel Falush5,*, Simon Myers3,6,*,†
Abstract
Modern genetic data combined with appropriate statistical methods have the potential to contribute substantially to our understanding of human history. We have developed an approach that exploits the genomic structure of admixed populations to date and characterize historical mixture events at fine scales.
We used this to
produce an atlas of worldwide human admixture history, constructed by using genetic data alone and encompassing over 100 events occurring over the past 4000 years.
We identified events whose dates and participants suggest they describe genetic impacts of the Mongol empire, Arab slave trade, Bantu expansion, first millennium CE migrations in Eastern Europe, and European colonialism, as well as unrecorded events, revealing admixture to be an almost universal force shaping human populations.
...
http://www.well.ox.ac.uk/~gav/admixture/2014-science-final/resources/FAQ.pdfFrequently asked questions about “A Genetic Atlas of Human Admixture History”G. Hellenthal, G.B.J. Busby, G. Band, J.F. Wilson, C. Capelli, D. Falush, S. Myers, Science
(2014)
What is your work about and how is it new?
Many researchers have studied human DNA and its history, and this has revealed how humans have
spread around the globe. This spreading out produces distinct populations, and small genetic
differences between separated populations arise (although most variation is still shared among groups).
When groups come back together – for example due to migrations or invasions - and have children, this
is called genetic admixture, and leaves a characteristic signature in DNA.
Our work uses DNA from many people around the world to identify these mixture events, and find out
first, who the groups were that mixed – often to the level of individual countries – and second, when
the mixture occurred. Other researchers have developed important tools to look at one or other these
questions but our method is the first to do both simultaneously – allowing us to more fully describe
events.
By using “chromosome painting”, it also offers better power and precision than previously
available. We are able to consider complex histories (e.g. several waves of mixing) and have analysed
95 groups across the globe, producing an “atlas” of mixing dates, places and mixing populations.
What does your study imply about human ancestry?
( 1)Most human populations are a product of mixture of genetically distinct groups that intermixed
within the last 4,000 years.
( 2)Mixture events are often localized in time and space: neighboring populations can sometimes
have distinct ancestry and history, especially for recent events.
( 3)Many mixture events involve source populations from very distant locations separated by
thousands of miles.
....
http://ec2-54-229-188-37.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com/admixture/2014-science-final/A genetic atlas of human admixture history - instructionsThis interactive map summarizes the results described in the paper "A genetic atlas of human admixture history", Hellenthal et al, Science (2014). This help page gives a brief summary of the content and structure of the page. (We also suggest reading the FAQ and the tutorial accessible under the 'Historical event' menu.) To begin, click on a labelled population on the map (or select one from the "Target" drop-down menu at top). You will see displayed details of past admixture events which we infer to have occurred in forming that population.