The conclusions are pretty technical but the study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances highlights one feature in particular that makes people unique among primates: their physical endurance is indeed extraordinary.

It is probably something we inherited from hunter-gatherers over the course of two million years, the researchers say. In a nutshell, when it comes to pushing one's body to the limit, humans run circles around monkeys.

The limit to human endurance is measured in multiples of something called basal metabolism, which is the minimum energy, counted in calories, that is expended by the body to keep itself going for one minute.

And the limit to human endurance is about 2.5 times this basal metabolism, says the team, led by Herman Pontzer, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University.