Modern humanity doesn’t have it so bad, right? Humans in modern, industrialized societies have conquered pitfalls that would have killed our ancestors – most of us don’t worry about starvation, infectious disease, parasites, being killed by predatory animals, and so on.
Unfortunately, claims Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister, the same industrial revolution that has given many humans a relative life of ease has made us physically weak, to the point that even our most elite athletes can’t hold a candle to our prehistoric forefathers.
Says McAllister:
“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.”
While this may be true, this extraordinary human conditioning would have been the result of constantly testing one’s physical limits on a daily basis. The industrial revolution allowed humans to devote their thoughts and energies to developing new technologies that have greatly enhanced our lives in different ways. We’re now on the verge of radically changing the idea of what it means to be “human,” as well as developing new life-enhancing capabilities that would have been unthinkable to even our recent ancestors.
All things considered, I’ll take the modern way of life, even if there is a physical trade-off.
Not convinced. There are still many nomadic and primitive tribes on the planet who certainly do not appear to be robust. Goat herding, I think, is quite relaxing.
But from what I can tell many members of “primitive” tribes do stay in excellent physical shape and health due to their diets and physical activity. Of course they wouldn’t be able to benefit from modern medicine and would be at the mercy of dying of minor injuries, infections, infectious disease and the like.
Can’t comment about goat herding, although I do know that those animals are quite stubborn! It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it’s actually quite active and stressful!
I’ll confess, I’ve not done much goat herding myself, but, would you put these Masai warriors in a UFC ring? http://bit.ly/bfVrDT Without the sticks. Compared to the stereotypical sysadmin, I’ll agree, good shape.
I don’t know, those guys look like they’re in pretty good shape to me! I’d definitely put my money on one of the Masai vs. any UFC fighter in a footrace.
I’ve read the Masai, in particular, actually live very healthy lifestyles, perhaps surprising because their diet is basically milk, meat and blood.
Bring on the 2012 Olympics!