Astronauts vs Cavemen. Who wins?

[Donegeal]

The fight might not start unarmed, but that wouldn't last long.

The astronaut would win because of his inteligence and adatability.

[General Ludd]

Cavemen would be just as, if not more, intelligent and adaptable as far as it would matter in this case. An understanding of advanced physics, math, and other edumicated things isn't going to help much in a situation like this. Remember, McGuyver is fiction

[Thorgal]

This remembers me of a recent visit i made to an ancient castle-museum. Have you ever seen a real armor or an claymore of the XV or XVI century? I Have, and I have hefted it on my hands. Only looking at such stuff it is obvious that people of ancient times were incomparably stronger and tougher than current people. NOBODY in present days could move with such iron armors on, it was hard simply to lift the claymore (And i weight about 95 Kg and i am in relative good shape) it would be unthinkable to fight with it. When you have in mind that in those times soldiers were able to walk many kilometers loaded with all that stuff (and more) and then fight with it, results obvious they were made of a different matter. That now we would consider a though and strong man is nothing but a weak fragile girl in comparision.

[GePap]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
The people who view "cavemen" as some sort of ridiculously strong and tough creatures are ignoring the facts. Stone-age peoples discovered recently in untouched form in the Americas and Australasia display, in general, no incredible level of strength or toughness. While two centuries ago it was been true that your average "savage" was probably bigger and stronger than the average soldier of an industrialised nation, nowadays the prevalence of protein-heavy diets and regular physical training for large parts of the population have reversed the advantage.

I doubt that even two hundred years ago "savages" were in any way stronger than your average farmer. They might be less sickly than urban dwellers, like people living in the country were, but they still had far more limited diets than anyonme living in an organized agriculture based society.

I recommend the show "Going Tribal" in terms of how "fit" a possible "caveman" was.

I think the deciding facotr would be the level of experience in physical fights. Even if an astronaut is ex-military, its not like all men in the army are taught to be black belts.

The Astronaut would probably be bigger and stronger, but I think the "caveman" might be a big faster, more wiry. I think the astronaut has more advantages at the end and fo with him to win.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Thorgal
This remembers me of a recent visit i made to an ancient castle-museum. Have you ever seen a real armor or an claymore of the XV or XVI century? I Have, and I have hefted it on my hands. Only looking at such stuff it is obvious that people of ancient times were incomparably stronger and tougher than current people. NOBODY in present days could move with such iron armors on, it was hard simply to lift the claymore (And i weight about 95 Kg and i am in relative good shape) it would be unthinkable to fight with it. When you have in mind that in those times soldiers were able to walk many kilometers loaded with all that stuff (and more) and then fight with it, results obvious they were made of a different matter. That now we would consider a though and strong man is nothing but a weak fragile girl in comparision.

That is not particulalrly true. I have seen real armor, and 1. these guys were generally shorter than you or I. 2., their diets would not have supported huge bulging muscles.

That Armor would be worn over the entire body, distributing the weight, making it easier to bear. Just think of all the really fat people in the world caryring around the extra weight. Certainly the average person without training could not do it, but that was the same back in 1400. That is why you have to train and condition people. Someone today on average is bigger than anyone back then due to vastly imporved diets and sanitation (less parasites sucking away bodily resources). With the same level of training someone today is stronger.

[chequita guevara]

Given that "cave" men had much denser bones and much stronger muscles, it is extremely likely that they would rip the astronauts apart, unless the pilots were black belts.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Given that "cave" men had much denser bones and much stronger muscles

Source, please.

In terms of pure strength a modern human who is physically trained ("astronaut") is in far superior condition to the average preagricultural anatomically modern human ("caveman")

The caveman probably has the edge if he has the time to build weapons in the wilderness, because he will be more familiar with the techniques involved in toolmaking from scratch.

The caveman is probably also more inured to pain and deprivation than the astronaut. So in fact, the advantages are the opposite of those being posted by most of the people here. When it comes to pure physicality the astronaut wins. When technical proficiency comes into play, the caveman wins because he's in his environment. If it was caveman versus astronaut on a spaceship or with access to a machine shop then the technical proficiency advantage goes the other way.

[chequita guevara]

People wearing comparable field armor today (i.e, built for their size) are capable of doing cartwheels, jumping around, and all sorts of things you wouldn't assume they would be capable of doing. It's the jousting and ceremonial armor that was almost impossible to move in. The former was especially built up in order to protect knights from being killed in the joust. The latter just to look pretty and awesome. Neither were ever used in battle.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Please, source.

Cartoon History of the Universe. Like most "wild" animals, "cave" men had denser bones and stronger muscles. As we domesticated ouselves, like other domesticated animals, our bones became more refined, etc.

Or you could just go look at some cave man fossils and compare them to modern skeletons yourself.

[Thorgal]

Originally posted by GePap


That is not particulalrly true. I have seen real armor, and 1. these guys were generally shorter than you or I. 2., their diets would not have supported huge bulging muscles.

That Armor would be worn over the entire body, distributing the weight, making it easier to bear. Just think of all the really fat people in the world caryring around the extra weight. Certainly the average person without training could not do it, but that was the same back in 1400. That is why you have to train and condition people. Someone today on average is bigger than anyone back then due to vastly imporved diets and sanitation (less parasites sucking away bodily resources). With the same level of training someone today is stronger.

Yes, looking at the armor they were shorter than me (1.84m ), but wider too. But the most curious thing is that the gauntlets were much larger that my normal sized hands. They had much larger hands in comparision with the size of his body.

OTOH can you see any soldier today crossing Europe or the Amazon jungle walking and in heavy armor plus several iron weapons? I really cant.

[Jon Miller]

You know in WW2 soldiers had 100 pound packs, or something like that.

JM

[chequita guevara]

Course it depends on whether you're basing a fight between homo erectus and homo sapiens sapiens or between different versions of the latter.

[VetLegion]

Originally posted by Thorgal
NOBODY in present days could move with such iron armors on, it was hard simply to lift the claymore (And i weight about 95 Kg and i am in relative good shape) it would be unthinkable to fight with it.

You're pretty weak for a 95 kg guy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claymore

"The average claymore ran about 55 inches (1.4 m) in overall length, with a 13 inch (33 cm) grip, 42 inch (1 m) blade and weighed approximately 5.5 lb (2.5 kg)."

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Please, source.

Cartoon History of the Universe. Like most "wild" animals, "cave" men had denser bones and stronger muscles. As we domesticated ouselves, like other domesticated animals, our bones became more refined, etc.

Or you could just go look at some cave man fossils and compare them to modern skeletons yourself.

I edited my post to include further points

[chequita guevara]

It's be like a wolf versus an average dog (not those specifically bread to kill wolves).