The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis

[Clinton Huxley]

Remember that guy? Algis or something. He loved him some water-monkeys and shiz.

[Brian Peacock]

It's lovely once you're in.

[Faithfree]

When I was a kid one of my mates tried to raise sea monkeys.

What a crock of shite that turned out to be.

[mistermack]

Remember that guy? Algis or something. He loved him some water-monkeys and shiz.

A lot of people were taken in. David Attenborough had it included in one of his programs, the life of mammals I think. But then Attenborough was never that bright. He bangs on about global warming as well.

[Clinton Huxley]

When I was a kid one of my mates tried to raise sea monkeys.

What a crock of shite that turned out to be.

Remember those. The adverts were usually right next to the one's for x-ray specs.

[Clinton Huxley]

It may have been a concept ahead of its time. Sea level rise may see aquatic apes evolve in flat places, like Holland. They'll have the best aquatic apes.

[mistermack]

It was some Welsh biddy, Elaine Morgan, (or summat similar) who wrote it up originally.
She made a good job of it. She's a convincing writer, and people not used to that kind of special pleading might well have become convinced. At least initially. Until you see that she's interpreting every little thing one way only. She certainly convinced Attenborough.

[Clinton Huxley]

It's one of those ideas that attracts true believers. For this Algis guy on the Dawk forum, it explained literally every difference between humans and other primates

[pErvinalia]

What is the actual "theory"?

[Faithfree]

What is the actual "theory"?

See wiki, but it might be TLDR
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquatic_a ... thesis[url][/url]

[pErvinalia]

I'm not clicking on a link.

[mistermack]

It postulates an aquatic phase in the story of human evolution, resulting in walking on two legs, and having more body fat than other apes, etc etc.

No direct evidence of a wading, water loving human ancestor has ever been found, so indirect evidence is offered, like our ability to swim, our love of water, our bigger brains (from eating sea food) and the like.

[JimC]

Without suggesting that it was a dominant factor in our evolution, I've read suggestions that much of the expansion across the world out of Africa followed the sea coasts, and that we were (and are) well adapted to exploit the potential food bonanza of the littoral zones. Doing so may have at least generated (possibly culturally) some swimming and shallow diving techniques. Costal indigenous people in Oz certainly made great use of shellfish in their diets.

[NineBerry]

The exodus from Africa of Homo Sapiens was a quite recent event. The aquatic ape hypothesis deals with the basics of humans: walking on two feet and growing a bigger brain.

[mistermack]

The exodus from Africa of Homo Sapiens was a quite recent event. The aquatic ape hypothesis deals with the basics of humans: walking on two feet and growing a bigger brain.

Yes, the exploitation of food on the coast would involve plenty of tool use, which dates it as late.

Becoming an upright ape goes back about six million years or more, well before the record of stone tools, which date from about 3.5 million years ago at the earliest.
Hominids might have been using wood before stone, but no middens of shells or other evidence has been found, dating back to those extreme ages.