Invention of agriculture played a key role in gradually weakening the bones/skeletons of humans, according to fresh study by a team of University of Cambridge and Penn State University researchers.
A team of researchers from the two universities analyzed X-ray images of thigh bones from modern humans and compared those samples with bones from ancient primates, including orangutans.
They found that modern humans' bones are much lighter as well as more fragile than those of their ancient ancestors. For the comparison, the research team used femur (thigh bone), which is the longest as well as strongest bone in the human body.
The researchers concluded that humans' skeletons started weakening after they stopped hunting and started crop cultivation for food. Agriculture and a more sedentary lifestyle soon became the norm. It decreased physical activity, which led to lighter and weaker bones.
While human hunters around 7,000 years ago had bone mass similar to those of modern orangutans, farmers around six generations later had much weaker bone mass. The researchers concluded that the ancient hunters' bone mass was nearly 20 per cent greater than that of the later farmers.
Sharing the findings of the study, the researchers concluded, "The morphological differences between the highly mobile foragers and relatively sedentary village agriculturalists clearly point to physical activity as a major determinant of bone mass in the hip joint."
The research published a recent edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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