Man's Aquatic Ape Origins

The theory that man's ancestors adapted to an aquatic existence is, by no means, accepted by the paleontological community. Yet, as the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis suggests, mainstream science is all to often mired in its own dogma to explore the boundaries of the bold and fantastic. It is also not at all surprising that while quick to condemn the hypothesis, most scientific journals have never attempted to evaluate our aquatic origins.

The truth of the matter is that there are a number of important human physiological traits that suggest water played a role in our evolution:

Bipedalism: Bipedalism offers a number of advantages in water including improved balance, reduced strain on the back, hips, and knees, and improved blood circulation. Human's elongated lower limbs also improves swimming speeds.

Hairlessness: Human's hairless skin is comparable to aquatic mammals and land-dwelling mammals that have had aquatic ancestors. What hair humans have follows the flow of water over the body.

Descended larynx: The human larynx is situated in the throat rather than the nasal cavity, a featured shared by aquatic mammals who use it to close off the trachea while diving and facilitates taking large breaths of air upon surfacing.

Encephalization: Encesphalization is the amount of brain mass exceeding that related to total body mass. An animal's encesphalization is known to be directly related to its intelligence. Aquatic Ape theorists suggest that man's increased encesphalization was due to an increased diet of fatty acids found in fish and sea foods.

 

 

British author Elaine Morgan is one of the Aquatic Ape Hypothesis strongest, and most famous, advocates. Morgan's early rejections of the common-held beliefs of our ancestor's savannah origins stemmed from what she saw as sexism and misogyny implicit in the science of the day. For example, Morgan asserted that if humans lost their hair because the need to sweat while chasing wild game, then why would women who gathered food while protecting young children also lose their hair (the vast majority of our early ancestor's caloric intake came from gathering nuts, fruits, and vegetables and not wild game).

 

Morgan's aquatic ape theories and ideas are profiled in the BBC documentary "The Aquatic Ape." See the complete documentary on-line at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTe9qVEAcXk.