Besides the fact that they simply had to do physical labor all the time and most people today in modern nations sit on their ass 10+ hours a day, do you think cavemen or ancient “pre technology” peoples were stronger both because they worked more and because of different genetics? The latter comes from an article I was reading last night (wish I could remember the name) that asserts ancient people may have been so genetically different than us today that they may not have been able to reproduce with us, if we could clone one obviously.
I was also reading on a related subject that a chimp is between 3-5 times stronger than a human, but this is because we have much more motor control and (speculatively) there may exist a “switch” in the human nervous system which limits our maximum strength potential to certain circumstances, citing instances where people do incredible things like lift up SUVs to save someone who is being crushed.
To get to the point: If you were to randomly select an untrained caveman and untrained modern human, and gave them a rigorous training program, do you think they would demonstrate markedly different results after say, 12 weeks, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 5 years?
Come to think of it, I just considered the effects of diet, sleep, daily schedule, etc (since the introduction of the lightbulb the average sleep duration has dropped from 9 to 7 hours a day).
Nope, there’d be no reason to expect that there would be a genetic difference which would make a meaningful untrained strength difference in the general population. In saying that, due to lifelong malnutrition, and poorer health i’d bet on the modern person to adapt better to training.
I’m not sure where you read that we couldn’t breed with ancient humans as if we are the same species we can breed, simple as that. Hell you can breed a lion and a tiger, sure the offspring (called a Liger, no shit) are sterile.
Humans from all over the world have been able to reproduce together regardless of how isolated they have been. Europeans were able to breed with indigenous Australians from Tasmania, a people who had been all isolated from the rest of humankind for at least 10,000 years. This is only an example of humans who have lived in a very different environment in isolation for extremely long periods of time. There’s plenty of evidence that ‘we’ (homosapians) breed with neanderthals so that covers off the breeding issue for good.
[quote]Aero51 wrote:
Come to think of it, I just considered the effects of diet, sleep, daily schedule, etc (since the introduction of the lightbulb the average sleep duration has dropped from 9 to 7 hours a day).
[/quote]
A few points concerning the ‘untrained caveman’:
First of all, we’d have to decide what a caveman is. Homo Erectus? Neanderthals? Cro Magnon people? The latter are so close to the modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens, genetically speaking, that we may regard them as the same the moment they are born.
However, that very moment is when something else kicks in: adaptation. Genetics, as we all know, only determine someone’s appearance, abilities etc to a certain extent; the rest is ‘lifestyle’ - eating habits, sleeping patterns, activity, illnesses.
The average caveman, even with the same genetics, will
be lighter since food is harder to come by
riddled by illnesses and parasites such as tapeworms etc
used to very high activity levels
So, chances are that, unless he is a complete wreck in terms of health (which means he’ll be dead soon) he won’t have bulging muscles. I.e. his chances of winning an open class powerlifting contest are minimal. IN terms of relative strength and endurance, he will probably be better. Think of how indigenous tribes in Africa inspired Georges Hebert to found the methode naturelle which then spawned parkour.
That being said… Individuals are individuals.
I was also reading on a related subject that a chimp is between 3-5 times stronger than a human, but this is because we have much more motor control and (speculatively) there may exist a “switch” in the human nervous system which limits our maximum strength potential to certain circumstances, citing instances where people do incredible things like lift up SUVs to save someone who is being crushed.
[/quote]
There is a switch of sorts that shuts down the muscles when a limb is injured or overloaded. Like when you break a bone and that limb stops working even if you want it to.
Weight training may diminish this mechanism to some degree, but I don’t know anything about a trade off of fine motor skills for strength.
[quote]Aero51 wrote:
To get to the point: If you were to randomly select an untrained caveman and untrained modern human, and gave them a rigorous training program, do you think they would demonstrate markedly different results after say, 12 weeks, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 5 years?
[/quote]
So the only constant is the training? Of course the modern human wins. Nutrition, supplements, medicine, etc will all contribute to this. A “caveman” has no steady source of protein or food for that matter. They have no access to supplements (legal and illegal). If they are injured/sick they are pretty much shit out of luck. They do not have beds or housing like we do, so even if they were sleeping more, I can’t imagine the quality of sleep was better.
Plus I am sure their stress levels were through the roof. Something about having to worry about predators and not knowing when your next meal is would stress me the fuck out. Oh and I am sure the modern human exerts themselves a lot less throughout the day (outside of training) which would attribute to better recovery.
I read a paper years ago about how much bigger and denser bone was from skeletons of paleolithic men in comparison to modern men, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they were bigger and stronger than some seem to think. As for nighthawkz post that food would be harder to come by, I’m not sure how relevant that is.
Of course it’s true that food was harder to come by, but there’s no indication that it was insufficient and it was clearly high quality food (what’s better than venison?). Indeed the average human height has only very recently surpassed average paleolithic height: our grandfathers were shorter than paleolithic men. I think that tells us all we need to know on whether or not paleolithic man would be small and light.
Also I’m not sure I agree that the average paleolithic man would have suffered chronically from malnutrition and infections. Don’t get me wrong, I think they would be common causes of death, but I don’t think they would exist as a chronic picture - rather as an acute deterioration before death.
I’d have thought that paleolithic man’s health would have been comparable to that of any wild animal - resilient and healthy until something suddenly goes wrong (infected wound, food shortage etc) and they die. They were incredibly well adapted to their environment/lifestyle so I see no reason to believe they would have been suffering from long-term infections, at least not to any great degree. In fact I’m certain that the vast majority of paleolithic humans thrived: even in their day they were the dominant species of this planet.
I’d have thought that the average paleolithic man would be significantly stronger, fitter, faster and better co-ordinated than the average 21st century man, but I think that modern training methods and nutrition mean that contemporary athletes would be stronger still.
As for the OP’s actual question as to whether modern man and paleo man would respond differently to training - I have absolutely no idea.
[quote]Aero51 wrote:
Besides the fact that they simply had to do physical labor all the time and most people today in modern nations sit on their ass 10+ hours a day, do you think cavemen or ancient “pre technology” peoples were stronger both because they worked more and because of different genetics? The latter comes from an article I was reading last night (wish I could remember the name) that asserts ancient people may have been so genetically different than us today that they may not have been able to reproduce with us, if we could clone one obviously.
I was also reading on a related subject that a chimp is between 3-5 times stronger than a human, but this is because we have much more motor control and (speculatively) there may exist a “switch” in the human nervous system which limits our maximum strength potential to certain circumstances, citing instances where people do incredible things like lift up SUVs to save someone who is being crushed.
To get to the point: If you were to randomly select an untrained caveman and untrained modern human, and gave them a rigorous training program, do you think they would demonstrate markedly different results after say, 12 weeks, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years and 5 years?
Come to think of it, I just considered the effects of diet, sleep, daily schedule, etc (since the introduction of the lightbulb the average sleep duration has dropped from 9 to 7 hours a day).
It’s an interesting concept. What do you think?[/quote]
What do I think? I think you should cut back on getting high and posting.
[quote]Spud84 wrote:
I’m not sure where you read that we couldn’t breed with ancient humans as if we are the same species we can breed, simple as that. Hell you can breed a lion and a tiger, sure the offspring (called a Liger, no shit) are sterile.
Humans from all over the world have been able to reproduce together regardless of how isolated they have been. Europeans were able to breed with indigenous Australians from Tasmania, a people who had been all isolated from the rest of humankind for at least 10,000 years. This is only an example of humans who have lived in a very different environment in isolation for extremely long periods of time. There’s plenty of evidence that ‘we’ (homosapians) breed with neanderthals so that covers off the breeding issue for good.
[quote]furo wrote:
I’d have thought that the average paleolithic man would be significantly stronger, fitter, faster and better co-ordinated than the average 21st century man, but I think that modern training methods and nutrition mean that contemporary athletes would be stronger still.
[/quote]
I think surely this must be spot on. There’s no way in hell some skinny fat desk jockey would be stronger in any metric than a paleolithic human. But your average strength athlete would be still be much, much stronger.
I think the only factor at work here though is the fact that they have access to the barbell and the time/convenience to do nothing but train. The strength of a paleolithic person would simply be implicit to their lifestyle which, while much better than an “average” modern person, would still not compare to an athlete who has the time and tools necessary to devote to specifically increasing physical strength.
[quote]sen say wrote:
What do I think? I think you should cut back on getting high and posting.[/quote]
Related note, I have actually read that there is a gene partially responsible for the desire to smoke and the difficulty in stopping smoking. This gene was passed on to modern humans by neanderthals.
FACT: No grocery stores in Paleolithic times
FACT: Cavemen went long periods of time without eating and then ate all the food they could find
FACT: You can’t get big and strong when intermittently fasting
FACT: Modern man wins
[quote]furo wrote:
I’d have thought that the average paleolithic man would be significantly stronger, fitter, faster and better co-ordinated than the average 21st century man, but I think that modern training methods and nutrition mean that contemporary athletes would be stronger still.
[/quote]
I think surely this must be spot on. There’s no way in hell some skinny fat desk jockey would be stronger in any metric than a paleolithic human. But your average strength athlete would be still be much, much stronger.
I think the only factor at work here though is the fact that they have access to the barbell and the time/convenience to do nothing but train. The strength of a paleolithic person would simply be implicit to their lifestyle which, while much better than an “average” modern person, would still not compare to an athlete who has the time and tools necessary to devote to specifically increasing physical strength.[/quote]
Yes exactly. I think we’re often on the same wavelength Csulli.
To be honest I think that this topic isn’t so abstract - modern day hunter gatherers surely aren’t too dissimilar to paleolithic man. From watching documentaries etc it’s clear that modern hunter gatherers are very adept at manipulating their own bodyweight - running, jumping, climbing etc - and would outperform the average Western man in any physical feat - but it’s also clear that they wouldn’t blow anyone away on a powerlifting platform or rugby field.
Having said that, I don’t think that modern hunter gatherers are a direct match for paleolithic man as the remaining hunter gatherer populations exist in particularly inhospitable and isolated locations (hence why they are relatively untouched by civilisation). I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that hunter gatherers in more temperate climates and with access to larger game (for example in central Europe rather than the Amazon) would likely have grown bigger and stronger. Just like how red deer in the New Forest in England grow vastly bigger than their cousins in the Highlands.
[quote]sen say wrote:
What do I think? I think you should cut back on getting high and posting.[/quote]
Related note, I have actually read that there is a gene partially responsible for the desire to smoke and the difficulty in stopping smoking. This gene was passed on to modern humans by neanderthals.[/quote]
I read the same thing, but about a masturbatory gene…some anthropologists speculate cavemen died out because their masturbatin’ gene got too big and they weren’t able to pay attention when T-Rex came around since they were too focused on pounding one off…the cavewomen would be hitting their men-folk over the head with their cavepurses and yelling things like, “OG! OG! Mumufuku no ma”, but it was too late.
[quote]sen say wrote:
What do I think? I think you should cut back on getting high and posting.[/quote]
Related note, I have actually read that there is a gene partially responsible for the desire to smoke and the difficulty in stopping smoking. This gene was passed on to modern humans by neanderthals.[/quote]
I read that too on BBC news today haha. Related to that - did you know that the gene responsible for being more likely to become addicted to cigarettes is often linked to a gene that predisposes to lung cancer. So those that are more likely to become chronic smokers are also more likely to get lung cancer from that smoking (independent of the pack years smoked). Pretty brutal.
[quote]sen say wrote:
What do I think? I think you should cut back on getting high and posting.[/quote]
Related note, I have actually read that there is a gene partially responsible for the desire to smoke and the difficulty in stopping smoking. This gene was passed on to modern humans by neanderthals.[/quote]
I read the same thing, but about a masturbatory gene…some anthropologists speculate cavemen died out because their masturbatin’ gene got too big and they weren’t able to pay attention when T-Rex came around since they were too focused on pounding one off…the cavewomen would be hitting their men-folk over the head with their cavepurses and yelling things like, “OG! OG! Mumufuku no ma”, but it was too late.[/quote]
Huge LOL
Without a doubt if you got in a time machine and went back 20000 years you would find homo sapiens who were much stronger than those today due to natural selection. Back then the rigors and necessities of daily life and survival required men who were strong and powerful thus they are the ones that females selected to mate with.
Come civilization and the use of animals and other technology for the laborious nature of agriculture and other purposes, physical attributes became less desirable. Other attributes such as intelligence and the ability to grow a good crop or sell or trade things for profit became the way to prosper for men so being a brick shithouse who could wrestle a bear or throw an arrow 1200 yards was no longer the main consideration for females when choosing sperm doners for their children.
Now in the 21st century you have men who would have been thrown of a cliff as a baby (if they survived birth) ruling the world and landing super models.
Some people are under the weird assumption that hunter-gatherers were starving and fighting for their dear lives 24/7 - which couldn’t be further from the facts.
Since he walked upright and tamed fire, man owned nature for the most part.
A healthy, adult male from 100 000 years ago would have little to no problems filling his stomach.
Apart from occasional diseases, once he survived childhood (the biggest threat and the reason people spout nonsense like “they were all dying in their 20s”), his real enemy would be brutal tribal warfare - hardly a factor that favours weak men.
[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Some people are under the weird assumption that hunter-gatherers were starving and fighting for their dear lives 24/7 - which couldn’t be further from the facts.
Since he walked upright and tamed fire, man owned nature for the most part.
A healthy, adult male from 100 000 years ago would have little to no problems filling his stomach.
Apart from occasional diseases, once he survived childhood (the biggest threat and the reason people spout nonsense like “they were all dying in their 20s”), his real enemy would be brutal tribal warfare - hardly a factor that favours weak men.
[/quote]
Yup I agree, that’s what I tried to say in my post.
