New research suggests human bones became more fragile when humans settled down as farmers after being hunter-gatherers for millennia.

Two new studies reveal that human transition to agriculture came at a cost. Researchers discovered human bones aren't as dense and as strong as those of our human ancestors 1,000 years ago.

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Human bones from different time periods were examined and X-rayed. Researchers zoomed in on the sponge like structure called the trabecular bone that gives overall strength to the bones. These bones can manifest changes in shape and structure when a load is applied to it similar to what exercise does to make bones stronger.

Early humans displayed a denser trabecular bone mass from the X-ray comparison with modern humans. The density is some 20 percent greater in 7,000 year-old hunter gatherer bones than in 700 year-old farmer skeletons.

Trabecular bone reveals great plasticity than any kind of bone as it changes shape and direction when load is imposed on it and with hunter gatherer bones, all their bones were thickened, according to Colin Shaw from the University of Cambridge in England.

Shaw adds that even athletes or people who exercise all the time can't reach the optimal bone density of hunter gatherers. He says it will take several million years of hominid evolution to reach that kind of physical activity that will result in stronger bone structure.

Modern humans have already adapted to a sedentary lifestyle in the last 100 years.

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