The coming Olympics will showcase some of the most extraordinary human feats of strength, speed, and agility. As an archaeologist who focuses on the development of the human species over evolutionary history, it’s interesting to consider how and why we came to be so good at certain things, from javelin throwing to the 500-meter sprint. Much of what makes our bodies capable of athletic prowess comes from well before we were Homo sapiens.
Human athletic paleobiology is a branch of research that uses trained athletes to explore adaptations of the human body. These studies focus on metabolism and peak physical performance, limb biomechanics, and other aspects of human anatomy and physiology to get a sense of the types of activities that humans in the past might have been capable of performing.
Here is a short roundup of some things we humans can do that make for great sport, along with a quick look at where these skills come from and how long they’ve been around.
