The Aquatic Ape Theory.

reply to post by snusfanatic


You made a very good point.

Given that only about 1% of fossil evidence is ever discovered, there's a very good chance that there could be something we've missed.

Cheers
Shane

Been awhile since I heard about this concept. TY for bringing it back up as I don't recall seeing it on ATS.
It always struck me as at least pointing in the right direction. It makes sense that most early tribes would be on the coast-weather is more mild, more water from tributaries, much easier to get food etc. etc. etc.

Great post as far as I am concerned.

reply to post by lordtyp0


Exactly. Easy to gather food, and shelter, better chance to gather the essentials of life.

It's been investigated (lots) and is now dismissed by almost everyone except the woman who came up with the idea (her approach now is that it's being dismissed because she's not a scientist.)
en.wikipedia.org...

There are several problems with this.
* We don't have mummies of these very early ancestors, so we don't know at which stage we lost most of our body hair. Artists (it's an artistic bias) draw early ancestors as hairy and being similar to apes, when the truth is that most of them wouldn't look THAT weird if you removed the "chimpanzee pelt" texturing that artists are so fond of.
* It doesn't explain the divergence into many human species (Heidelbergensis, Neanderthal, etc, etc)... none of whom had any adaptations for water.

The Wikipedia article has a summary of the physiological details that the writer/inventor of the theory glossed over (not being an anatomist) that really knock holes into this one.

It *is* true, however, that hominids often lived on the seashore. However, humans have been living on the seashores as well as in the interior of continents for hundreds of thousands of years and the seashore ones don't really look different from the ones living in the mountains or on the tundras or steppes.

Yay!!!!

I have been telling friends about a documentary I once watched in the early 80s called "Water Babies", and I never forgot the theory of the Aquatic Ape. I'm really happy to see that the theory is coming back again. I absolutely believe in this notion, and have since watching that old documentary. It explains so much and there's not anything that I've ever encountered that debunks it. Thanks for posting this.

Oh, and the opposable thumb and buttocks is easily explained when you consider the need for both when hunting for food in a bay or harbor environment. Swimming requires the buttocks muscles and to grab fish, you need an opposable thumb. Also, the hair on the head would remain to protect the head from the sun, while the rest of the body would be protected by the water's filtering of the rays. It all lines up nicely.