A Load of Old Balls

Life without sport is not life.

Mary Breese
(18th-century equestrian)

You have small feet and long legs. You have good balance. You have large buttocks. We're not just dishing out compliments here - these are traits shared by almost all humans, and they're what make us such exceptional runners. Our ancient ancestors had much longer toes, which are great for climbing trees but not so good for jogging: if your toes were just 20% longer, running would take twice as much energy.1

You also have a strong jawline. By and large, men have stronger jaws than women. It was long thought that these evolved because early hominids ate lots of nuts, seeds and tough meat. But this theory cannot explain the difference between the sexes, nor why strong jaws are also found in a human ancestor called Australopithecus, a species that mostly ate soft fruits. The most recent theory is that we evolved strong jaws in order to become good fighters, since they can take a punch. It could also explain why our hands have evolved in the way they have - they make such a good fist.

Humans, in short, are built for running and fighting. Martial arts and foot races are usually considered to be the first sports that we invented, but why did we go from running and fighting just to stay alive to doing so for recreation? What made our early ancestors, fleeing predators on the savannah or battling for survival, stop and think: 'Hang on, this is actually quite fun'?

It all comes down to our love of play, and the reason why we play at all is almost certainly because it helps children practise adulting. There's plenty of evidence for this. For instance, archaeologists in North America have found many smaller, children's versions of hunting implements that date back 2,000 years; they reason that by throwing a small spear or rock, a child would develop hand-eye co-ordination skills that would be vital in later life.2 It's not a huge leap to go from there to throwing a dart at a board or a basketball through a hoop.

Practising sport has other benefits, too, which explains why humans continue to do it into adulthood. Of course, it would have made our ancestors healthier, and so more attractive to the opposite sex and more likely to live longer (survival of the 'fittest' in both meanings of the word). But it goes beyond this: working as a team can help mental health, and pushing the body to its limits can produce incredible highs. Watching sport can give you a feeling of belonging. Winning can give you a drug-like high. Even cheating can make you feel better.

These facts help to explain how sport went from being a necessary part of growing up to an integral, species-defining aspect of human culture. It takes a similar role to ritual and religion, to such an extent that the Mayans actually believed there were sporting clashes before the Sun and the Moon existed (presumably they had very good floodlights) .

A WHOLE DIFFERENT BALL GAME

The Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the K'iche' people (a Mayan group), features the story of the twins Hunahpú and Xbalanqué. According to the legend, as punishment for disturbing the inhabitants of the underworld with their noisy ball games the twins were summoned to play a match of their favourite sport against the gods of death. The two teams would compete to see who could get a rubber ball into their opponent's goal.

The gods were confident of victory. The twins' journey to the chosen venue required them to pass through the House of Gloom, the House of Knives, the House of Cold, the House of Jaguars, the House of Bats and the House of Fire. All of these buildings were aptly named, so it was likely that they would arrive at the match a little worse for wear. And, of course, their opponents were gods and, therefore, omnipotent beings, which is likely to be a clincher in any sporting event.3

To make matters worse for the twins, their pre-match build-up was disrupted by Hunahpú having been decapitated by a killer bat in the aforementioned House of Bats. So it was something of a surprise when he and Xbalanqué nonetheless took to the pitch at the allotted hour. The gods, represented by two of their number known simply as One death and Seven death, arrived with the match ball - which was in fact the recently severed head of Hunahpú. This surely gave them a psychological edge.

The brothers had a trick up their sleeves, however, which was their special relationship with the animals of the earth. A friendly raccoon had found a squash and offered it to Hunahpú as a replacement for his head. And then, mid-game, when Hunahpú's actual head was kicked into a tomato patch, it was hidden by a rabbit, who then bounced out of the vegetation and onto the pitch, pretending to be the ball. As the gods chased the rabbit, Xbalanqué retrieved his brother's head and returned it to him, swapping it for the squash. The referee seemed happy enough that the vegetable could now be used as the match ball (no VAR in those days), and Xbalanqué punted it into the goal. It smashed on impact with the ground, its seeds flying everywhere. With no more ball, the game was over. The twins had won 1-0.

The tale continues with the brothers running away from the angry gods, before being caught and burnt to death, and having their ashes scattered into a river, where they reconstituted into catfish and finally turned back into humans. After several other scrapes with the gods of death, they eventually climbed into the heavens, where they became the Sun and the Moon.

In Mayan society, the game that the twins played against the gods was regularly re-enacted, and this became one of the most important rituals in ancient American culture. The ceremony, known to us as the Mesoamerican Ballgame, is believed by many to be the oldest-known team sport. For at least three millennia, Americans from Nicaragua in the South to Arizona in the North played various iterations of the game, with names such as tlachtli, ullamaliztli, pok-ta-pok and pitz. The exact rules of each version are unclear, since most of what we know comes from artistic depictions, archaeological remains and fantastical stories about rabbits and gods. But the aim was probably to propel the ball with your hips, upper arms or sometimes a bat to the opponent's end of the pitch, where hoops were used as goals.

Mesoamerican carvings and mythology suggest matches would often end with a human sacrifice, but if that's true, we're not sure who was sacrificed. Some academics think it was the losing team; others believe it was the winners. You might think that if it was the latter, it would result in teams throwing games, though the Mayans would consider that impossible, since it was the gods who decided the result. The general consensus among historians is that it would be a bit daft to sacrifice your best sportspeople - win or lose - and that if any sacrifices did occur, it would have been prisoners who were killed.

The association of violence with sport is not confined to the Mayans. Novelist George Orwell referred to sport as 'war minus the shooting', and many cultures have used play as a way to prepare for battle. Just as sport has long helped children to learn adult skills, so it has been used to help young men and women prepare for combat. Ironically, since sport has united people on so many occasions, a lot of modern sports have in fact been born out of classic human belligerence.

PLAY-FIGHTING

Polo is an ancient sport, but the first match played in Britain took place in 1869, after an army officer called Edward 'Chicken' Hartopp (whose nickname appears to have been an ironic reference to his size and bravery) read about a modern version of an ancient Persian game that was being played in India. He organised a match with fellow officers, initially calling it 'hockey on horseback'. Players in those early games usually used a cricket ball, which they hit with walking sticks rather than mallets (although one early match was said to have used golf clubs and a snooker ball4).

The game took off among the British military, who formulated the modern rules and spread their version around the world - appropriately perhaps, since the Persian original was invented to prepare men for war.5 In fact, the Persian game was effectively a battle in miniature. Unlike the modern game of polo, which is four-a-side, the Persian version could have up to a hundred riders on each team. The sport clearly extended beyond its military purpose, though, since women often played, despite almost never having a role on the battlefield. In one of the most influential works of medieval Persian literature, the romantic tragedy of Khosrow and Shirin, the lovers and their attendants play each other in games of polo, apparently equally matched.

Many of the ancient Greek Olympic events also had military roots. Throwing the javelin and the 'footrace in armour'6 self-evidently aped skills required in battle; the race in which participants...