Neanderthal males had Popeye-like arms

Washington, July 7 (ANI): Neanderthal males had unusually strong upper arms, just like Popeye, particularly on the right side, revealed a research.

Remains of an early Neanderthal with a super strong arm suggest that Neanderthal fellows were heavily pumped up on male hormones, possessing a hormonal status unlike anything that exists in humans today, the study suggested.

Researchers said that neanderthal males probably evolved their ultra macho ways due to lifestyle, genes, climate and diet factors.

Project leader Maria Mednikova claimed that Neanderthal males hunted in the "extreme," helping to beef up one arm.

"The common method for killing animals was direct contact with the victim," Discovery News quoted Mednikova, a professor in the Institute of Archaeology at the Russian Academy of Sciences, as saying.

Neanderthal males did not shoot prey, such as mammoths, with a bow and arrow from a distance.

Instead, they would engage in face-to-face contact, jabbing long, thick spears directly into the animal's flesh.

In fact, neanderthal females weren't delicate creatures either.

Researchers believe that "compared to anatomically modern humans, (both male and female Neanderthals) had a larger muscle mass and experienced a higher loading on the upper extremity than did Homo sapiens."

In addition, "they differed from modern humans by a greater functional difference between the sexes in the use of the right arm."

Neanderthal males had Popeye-type right arms, while Neanderthal females had arms that were more evenly matched and not nearly as muscular.

The team analysed a fossil humerus (long bone that extends from the shoulder to the elbow) for what they believe was an Neanderthal male that might have lived around 100,000 years ago in what is now Khvalynsk, Russia.

The bone was put through computerized tomography, X-rays and other analysis.

The study has been published in the journal Archaeology, Ethnology n Anthropology of Eurasia. (ANI)