Brawny Bones Reveal Medieval Hungarian Warriors Were Accomplished Archers (forbes.com)

'They discovered that there were lesions apparent in both groups of males, such as the bony attachment site for the biceps muscle, meaning regardless of whether the man was an archer or not, he had well-developed upper forearm muscles. “These common alterations refer to an activity that was widespread among the whole male population,” Tihanyi and colleagues write, although they do not know exactly what that activity was.'

Aside from the humorous implication of this paragraph, I wonder what activity it was. Sword-swinging? Some kind of repetitive work?

Bioarchaeology is so cool.

Interesting article, but the first sentence bothers me. The "Byzantine Empire" was the same thing as the Eastern Roman Empire (the latter being its more proper name anyhow). The 9th and 10th Centuries were actually some of the Empire's more stable years.

Surprisingly, Michael Crichton's book "Timeline" is a gentle introduction to the state of the art in knowledge about the so-called dark ages, shattering many of the myths we learned about that era in school. The myth of the overburdened armor wearer is one of them. Crichton was a first-class researcher and his bibliographic commentary alone is worth the price of admission.

Interesting article, but why would one assume all Hungarian warriors were accomplished archers based on one unit/batallion?

It's like saying English warriors were accomplished archers because they found a group of longbowmen (who also started training from childhood).

Archers were a staple of any medieval army, and obviously they had the best men grouped together and sent to battle...