Prehistoric women’s manual work was tougher than rowing in today’s elite boat crews

The first study to compare ancient and living female bones shows that women from early agricultural eras had stronger arms than the rowers of Cambridge University's famously competitive boat club. Researchers say the findings suggest a "hidden history" of gruelling manual labour performed by women that stretched across millennia. By interpreting women's bones in a female-specific context we can start to see how intensive, variable and laborious their behaviours were - Alison Macintosh A new study comparing the bones of Central European women that lived during the first 6,000 years of farming with those of modern athletes has shown that the average prehistoric agricultural woman had stronger upper arms than living female rowing champions. Researchers from the University of Cambridge's Department of Archaeology say this physical prowess was likely obtained through tilling soil and harvesting crops by hand, as well as the grinding of grain for as much as five hours a day to make flour. Until now, bioarchaeological investigations of past behaviour have interpreted women's bones solely through direct comparison to those of men. However, male bones respond to strain in a more visibly dramatic way than female bones. The Cambridge scientists say this has resulted in the systematic underestimation of the nature and scale of the physical demands borne by women in prehistory.  "This is the first study to actually compare prehistoric female bones to those of living women," said Dr Alison Macintosh, lead author of the study published today in the journal Science Advances .