Homo Erectus sprint & long-distance running performance

[Olaf Klisc]

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 :-P

[richardpar]

On Jan 27, 5:55 am, Olaf Klischat
<olaf.klisc...@isst.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
> 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 :-P

Sounds very impressive indeed. If that female H. erectus is
17% shorter
(1.5m/1.8m) than modern humans then her legs should be
17% shorter as well, and so should the length
of her pace.

If she ran 33% faster, but her pace was 17% shorter, then she
must have been running like the Roadrunner in those cartoons.
(Can't be bothered to go into the arithmetic details just now,
but she must have been something like a 45-50% better runner
than we are now, if any of this is at all true).

Does Stephen Baxter give any reference as to where he found
this remarkable information?

regards

Richard

[Jois]

"Olaf Klischat" <olaf.klischat@isst.fraunhofer.de> wrote in
message news:87ps911miu.fsf@swangoose.isst.fhg.de...
> 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 :-P

Run a Google search on: "Homo Erectus running"

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

Jois

[Rmacfarl]

On Jan 28, 8:28 pm, "Jois" <firstj...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> "Olaf Klischat" <olaf.klisc...@isst.fraunhofer.de> wrote in
> messagenews:87ps911miu.fsf@swangoose.isst.fhg.de...
>
> > 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