From Reuters:

Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister has just released his new book “Manthropology: The Science of the Inadequate Modern Male” in which he makes the case that compared to our tribal ancestors, we modern men are, well, a giant bunch of wimps.

“No ifs, no buts — the worst man, period…As a class we are in fact the sorriest cohort of masculine Homo sapiens to ever walk the planet.” – excerpt from prologue to Manthropology.

As one can imagine the argument goes something like this; since the industrial revolution we’ve gotten fat and lazy and dependant on technology and convenience. Nothing really new about that – deriding and belittling contemporary masculinity has become something of a sport for both conservatives and radical feminists alike these days .

Surprisingly though, McAllister isn’t just taking shots at beer swilling couch potatoes or “effeminate” metro-sexuals.  He goes as far as claiming even our modern Olympic athletes would be bowled over again and again in sports involving running, jumping, and throwing shit around.

One example from the article,

An analysis of the footsteps of one of the men, dubbed T8, shows he reached speeds of 37 kph on a soft, muddy lake edge. Bolt, by comparison, reached a top speed of 42 kph during his then world 100 meters record of 9.69 seconds at last year’s Beijing Olympics.

In an interview in the English university town of Cambridge where he was temporarily resident, McAllister said that, with modern training, spiked shoes and rubberized tracks, aboriginal hunters might have reached speeds of 45 kph.

Fair enough, but let’s see how well they can collect action figures or play Guitar Hero.

Read the full story here >>.