ape & human evolution needs total revision

[marc verhaegen]

4 common prejudices with 0 evidence:
it's often assumed that human ancestors
1) became bipedal (BP) when we left the trees for the ground??
2) evolved in Africa: Out-of-Africa (OoA)??
3) lived in savannas???
4) had australopithecine ancestors??

These are unproven anthropo- & afro-centric just-so pre-assumptions:
- "only humans are BP": BP = “hominin” = closer to us than to apes,
- Darwin thought “Out of Africa”: Pan & Gorilla live in Africa,
- in Africa, when you leave the jungle, you come in savanna,
- apith fossils are African, they were BP, and had some humanlike anatomical traits.

Therefore, many (most?) PAs still assume, without evidence:
1) we became BP after/when we split from Pan, and left the forests,
2) “hominins” & Homo originated in Africa (OoA),
3) we walked/ran bipedally in savannas (e.g. “endurance-running”),
4) BP fossils in Africa incl. apiths are “hominin” (anthropocentric belief: Pan & Gorilla have no fossils!?).
But knuckle-walking evolved in parallel in Pan//Gorilla, I had already showed, and we never had been KWing:
1) early-Miocene Hominoidea were already BP=vertical waders-climbers in swamp forests (humans & gibbons still are BP), google aquarboreal,
2) Mio-Pliocene Hominoidea lived along N-Tethys Ocean coasts (hylobatids & pongids still live in SE.Asia),
3) human ancestors have always been waterside, cf. physiology, anatomy, diet+DHA, island colonizations, intercontin.dispersals etc.etc.,
4) E.Afr.apiths resemble Gorilla > Pan > Homo, S.Afr.apiths resemble Pan > Homo or Gorilla (e.g. my Hum.Evol.papers).
https://www.gondwanatalks.com/l/the-waterside-hypothesis-wading-led-to-upright-walking-in-early-humans/

Possible partial aquarboreal convergence: Nasalis?
Proboscis-monkeys (largest colobine, upright body, rel.long legs…) in mangrove forests climb, sit, wade bipedally, often arms overhead.

Most likely scenario IMO:
Plate Tectonics & Hominoid Splittings:
c 30 Ma India approaching S-Asia formed island archipels: coastal forests++.
c 25 Ma Catarrhini reaching these islands became wading bipedally + climbing arms overhead -> aquarboreal Hominoidea.
c 20 Ma India further underneath Asia split hylobatids (E) & other=great apes (W), both following N-Tethys coastal forests (E vs W).
c 15 Ma the Mesopotamian Seaway Closure split pongids-sivapiths (E) & hominids-dryopiths (W: Medit.Sea + incipient Red Sea swamp forests).
c 8 Ma in Red Sea: N-Rift fm, followed by Gorilla ->Afar ->Praeanthropus afarensis Lucy etc.->boisei -> today G.gorilla & G.beringei.
c 5 Ma the Red Sea opening into the Gulf (Francesca Mansfield thinks caused by Zanclean mega-flood 5.33 Ma) split Homo & Pan:
– Pan went right: E.Afr.coastal forests ->S-Rift->Transvaal ->Au.africanus ->robustus (// Gorilla afar.->boisei) ->today P.troglodytes & P.paniscus,
– Homo went left: S.Asian coasts ->Java early-Pleist.H.erectus ->shallow-diving: pachy-osteo-sclerosis, DHA in seafood, brain++, stone tools, shell engravings...
mid->late-Pleist.: diving->wading->walking H.sapiens.