[SaxxonWoods]

They were physically stronger because living at that time required more physical strength than today.

Bring on the Captain Obvious poster.

[ElectricStrawberry]

Wow....the writer doesn’t even know what “fittest” means.

Earth to dumbarse, Man of today is more “fit” than men of yesteryear even though we are weaker.

[Bigg Red]

Many modern women are pretty wimpy and whiny, as well.

As for:
Cro-Magnon men were taller, more fit and had bigger brains than the average man of today.

&&
Perhaps, but they had very short life spans.

[The Toll]

I bet a cro-mag couldn’t pry the remote control from my hand regardless of how tuff he’s suppose to be.

[Natural Law]

"Whatever happened to survival of the fittest?"

Begging a question is not legitimate research. Man arose, not because he was the strongest, or the fastest, or had the sharpest teeth and claws, it was because he was the smartest and that allowed him to adapt to every ecosystem on the planet and dominate in the competition for food and mates.

[scottdeus12]

Modern Men are Wimps:

Yeah, tell that to this guy!

[American Constitutionalist]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpDCrMVtVI0

[Balding_Eagle]

According to McAllister humans have lost 40 percent of the shafts of the long bones because they are no longer subjected to the kind of muscular loads that were normal before the industrial revolution,”

Whew! THAT was close.

For a sentence or two I thought he might say that man has EVOLVED to adapt to our changing enviroment.

[discostu]

From an evolutionary standpoint there are two things that play into this. The first is medicine, every time a medical advance saves a child from sickness and that child goes on to breed we bring down the strength of the gene pool. The second is that we just have a different world where big strong men are no longer a primary necessity, most labor now is intellectual not physical, so the men that are obvious good providers tend to be the guys with glasses not the ones with shoulders. Evolution works in an ever changing world.

[count-your-change]

Thanks for the ping, but I’ll pass on this one.

[backhoe]

I can remember reading that Chinese Coolies ran all day with 300 pounds balanced on the bar on their shoulders, and that stevedores used to carry 300 pound hogsheads up rickety gangplanks...

[2111USMC]

Average heights by year of birth, men (cm)
1950–1955 1956-1960 1961–1965 1966–1970 1971–1975 1976–1980
Denmark 180.3 179.7 181.0 181.7 181.3 183.7
Sweden 179.6 179.4 180.9 180.5 180.4 181.2
Austria 176.3 177.0 179.2 178.5 178.7 179.6
Belgium 176.2 177.3 177.2 179.4 179.2 179.5
Finland 177.8 179.0 179.6 177.9 178.0 178.7
Greece 174.7 175.4 176.6 177.0 178.4 178.6
Ireland 174.9 176.3 176.1 176.9 177.0 177.4
Italy 172.5 174.3 174.9 174.7 175.4 177.1
Spain 171.3 171.7 173.3 174.7 175.7 176.1
Portugal 168.8 170.0 170.0 169.8 172.1 172.9

Average heights by year of birth, women (cm)
1950–1955 1956–1960 1961–1965 1966–1970 1971–1975 1976–1980
Denmark 167.2 166.6 167.5 168.5 168.1 168.6
Belgium 163.4 164.9 165.0 166.4 166.2 167.8
Sweden 165.4 166.4 166.7 166.9 166.7 167.2
Austria 165.6 166.2 166.7 166.3 167.7 167.1
Italy 161.4 162.3 163.0 163.9 164.4 166.5
Finland 164.3 164.9 165.5 165.5 165.2 165.9
Greece 163.3 164.1 164.8 165.5 166.4 165.9
Spain 160.4 161.0 161.3 162.8 164.4 165.5
Ireland 162.7 162.7 163.2 164.1 164.7 164.4
Portugal 158.9 159.3 160.5 160.8 162.5 162.5