Thread by @wrathofgnon

“Nineteenth-century archaeological excavations on the Greek island of Thera uncovered a 1,058-pound boulder, dated to the sixth century B.C., bearing the inscription 'Eumastas, the son of Critobulus, lifted me from the ground.'”
— Peter McAllister, Manthropology

“‘The Athenian oarsmen’s endurance was extraordinary,' said Rossiter’s coresearcher, historian Boris Rankov. 'In that respect, compared to anybody you could find today they were super athletes.’”
— Peter McAllister, Manthropology

“Laborers in the rip-roaring early days of the Industrial Revolution, for example, often performed feats unthinkable today... bridge builders in the mid-nineteenth century toiled all day with forty-pound sledge-hammers; today’s hammers weigh fourteen pounds.” — Peter McAllister

“In 207 BC Nero marched a Roman legion 310miles in 6 d, at the rate of almost 50miles per d, to meet and defeat Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal. This represents a dogtrot of 6 miles per h, or about half the speed of modern Olympic marathon gold medallists—day after day after day.”

More evidence of human degeneration:
“As it turns out, we’re not only weaker than just about any male human who ever walked the earth, we’re also slower.”
— Peter McAllister, Manthropology

The evolutionary road to human enfeeblement is long:
"As a fascinating 1926 experiment showed, common chimpanzees, even female ones, really are over four times as strong as human males, weight-for-weight."
— Peter McAllister

Rapid human degeneration, 21st century Australian infantry edition.
"In the old days kids used to walk around barefoot or in hard-soled leather shoes. It made their bones hard. From the eighties on they started wearing runners so they grew up with bones like chicken drumsticks.”