Re: [Paddlewise] Kayaking and bone strength development

Peter wrote:
<snip>>>>>>>>last year George Dyson wrote and article for Scientific
American about
native Aleut adaptation to specialized kayaking skills.  In it there was a
picture of an upper arm bone from a ancient archeological site showing the
mass and thickness compared to a modern Aleut upper arm bone.  The
implication was that repeated daily padding developed bone mass in the arms.
This seems consistent with what little I've read about bone mass
build-up.<<<<<snip>

The implication I took from this was that over many thousands of years of
kayak hunting (and in a hard environment to survive in) those males who were
most adapted to using the kayak for hunting were probably the ones who
survived and reproduced. Most likely their genes produced strong arm muscles
with big bones to attach those big muscles to. The area the muscles attached
to the bone were also reported be huge relative to the average male today.
This is less likely to be due to exercise than to genetics. It is likely in
the arctic the dogs were bred to pull and the human males were bred to
paddle.
Matt Broze
http://www.marinerkayaks.com


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