Re: Homo Erectus sprint & long-distance running performance



On Jan 28, 8:28 pm, "Jois" <firstj...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"Olaf Klischat" <olaf.klisc...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:87ps911miu.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

One of the characters in the book "Evolution" by Stephen Baxter is a
(female) Homo Erectus (1.5 MY ago) who can run 100 meters in 6 or 7
seconds and a mile in 3 minutes. It is stated that anatomically she
falls within the variation found in modern human populations (albeit
just barely); she's further described as: height > 150 cm, weight 45
kg, slender build, hard muscles, long limbs.

Is this consistent with current scientific research? I mean, the
physical description appears reasonable, but the athletic capabilities
sound just... impressive :-PRun a Google search on:
"Homo Erectus running"

Pretty good information there. 3-5 or more articles.

Jois

I seriously doubt that given that this is possible; in fact I'll bet
anything you like that it is impossible. There is no way a Homo
erectus built on essentially an identical body plan to a modern human
could perform at 30 to 40% better than the best, most highly trained
(and probably drug-fuelled) male athlete, or almost 50% better than
the best female.

The 100m sprint record has improved only about 2.5% in 38 years - from
9.95 to 9.79 seconds. Humans are running up against dimishing returns
in most Olympic sports and there is a physical limitation to further
improvement...

Ross Macfarlane

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