Aquatic Ape theory

[malcolm...@btinternet.com]

The Aquatic Ape theory was mentioned favourably by David Attenborough,
who is a British TV personality who fronts serious wildlife programmes.
This produced a chorus of criticism from the mainstream establishment.

Now in my view it is very unwise to call the Aquatic Ape hypothesis
"unscientific", because that risks confusion with biological theories
which genuinely are unscientific. I'd say it's unlikely, but not totally
disproven. The real issue is where do you fit the aquatic phase into
the known fossil record, which isn't good but but so bad either that
we don't have quite a few representative human fossils from Africa.

However it's not either/or. Obviously early humans spent some of their
time in water, and almost certainly more time then chimpanzees. We're
naturally attracted to the edges of bodies of water, and we know that
shellfish formed an important part of many early human diets (but too
late for most of the claims made by the Aquatic Ape hypothesis). You
don't have to be an Aquatic Ape to be an ape that is under evolutionary
pressure to be able to fish and swim.

[marc verhaegen]

Thanks, Malcolm. There's no problem with the fossil record: archaic Homo during the Pleistocene simply followed the ocasts & rivers: all "archaic" fossils & tools are found next to abundant open water at the time & edible shellfish, see, eg, the work of Stephen Munro on the subject (malacology). During the glacials, the coasts were often 100 m below sea level, so the fossil record is strongly biased against littoral fossils.
Discussions on the so-called "aquatic ape theory" are often irrelevant & outdated, not considering the recent literature on the subject.
Of course, humans didn't descend from aquatic apes, but our Pleistocene ancestors were too slow & heavy for regular running over open plains as some anthropologists still believe (for a demolition of the "endurance running" ideas, google "econiche Homo").
Instead, Homo populations during the Ice Ages (with sea-levels often 100 m lower than today) simply followed the coasts & rivers in Africa & Eurasia, eg, 800,000 years ago, they even reached Flores more than 18 km overseas.
Some recent info:
- eBook "Was Man more aquatic in the past?" introduction Phillip Tobias http://www.benthamscience.com/ebooks/9781608052448/index.htm
- guest post at Greg Laden's blog http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/01/30/common-misconceptions-and-unproven-assumptions-about-the-aquatic-ape-theory
- http://greencomet.org/2013/05/26/aquatic-ape-the-theory-evolves/
- Human Evolution conference London 8�10 May 2013 with David Attenborough, Don Johanson etc. www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk/education/education-conference-centre/study-days-conferences/pages/2013-evolution.aspx
- M Verhaegen & S Munro 2011 "Pachyosteosclerosis suggests archaic Homo frequently collected sessile littoral foods" HOMO � J compar hum Biol 62:237-247
- M Vaneechoutte, S Munro & M Verhaegen 2012 "Reply to John Langdon's review of the eBook: Was Man more aquatic in the past?" HOMO � J compar hum Biol 63:496-503
- for ape & australopith evolution, google "aquarboreal"
Best --marc verhaegen