Prehistoric women were stronger than modern rowers

MIAMI - Prehistoric women had stronger arms than modern-day rowers, likely due to the rigors of early farming which included tilling fields and grinding grain by hand, researchers said on Wednesday.

The study in the journal Science Advances is the first to compare the bones of women who lived 7,000 years ago in Central Europe to women of today - specifically championship rowers and British college students.

Previous studies have compared female to male bones, but this approach likely underestimated the workload of women because men's bones "respond to strain in a more visibly dramatic way than female bones", said the report.