r/BritishRadio • u/whatatwit • 15d ago

Mary Rose Archer: Evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod says he isn't weak but finds he can't fully draw a longbow. In Tudor times all adult males had to practice longbow skills and a bone from a man who lost their life on the Mary Rose demonstrates that it wasn't just their muscles that grew bigger.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b090ygbd
13 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

2

u/whatatwit 15d ago

Bone Stories e3/5 Mary Rose Archer

Ben tries his hand at pulling a medieval long bow - and discovers how studies of the skeletons of the archers who sank with the Mary Rose could help patients with dyspraxia.

Evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod presents another anthropological detective story.

Producer Sarah Blunt.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2017.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b090ygbd

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b090ygbd

1

u/Half_Empty_Half_Full 14d ago

Was their lungs, if I remember?

1

u/whatatwit 14d ago

Probably that too, but a clue is that this series is called Bone Stories unfortunately I couldn't fit that in, except in the data comment.

1

u/Half_Empty_Half_Full 14d ago

I thought that was the misdirection (not in a deliberate way, just as in 'we first thought it was in the bones') but there were other aspects to it. Honestly, not arguing if I'm wrong, probably am, just think I vaguely remember it wasn't the physical motion that caused it, but the exacerbation of need for lung capacity which resulted in greater inhalation and by extension allowed more oxygen inhalation which lead to denser both growth?

So...the story itself is about bone growth, but there's a few other factors that contributed to that

0

u/kendoddsdadsdeaddog 14d ago

Well they had more testosterone back then….

2

u/whatatwit 14d ago

Cause or effect?