4 ms·

I like the water ape theory. ie we had a period of time in our history where we spent a lot of time in low lying water that encouraged us to stand upright. Ther

I like the water ape theory. ie we had a period of time in our history where we spent a lot of time in low lying water that encouraged us to stand upright. There's a few things which point in this direction. iirc we're the only primate which can control its breath; good for swimming under water. Our fingers wrinkle when we spend time in water; good for picking things up in water. And we lost our hair; hair may have gotten caught on underwater objects drowning the hairiest amongst of us.

sliken 7y ago
Seems like a stretch. We suck at swimming (compared to bears for speed or distance). The breath thing seems unlikely, polar bears for instance seem quite adept at swimming underwater. Hair doesn't seem an issue either, hair (assuming it's not knotted) doesn't easily catch on things, and hairy bears seem quite adept under water. Sure whales used to be hairy (and has some residual hair today), but that's more the lack of need than any lethal hair+water problem that kills them off before they reproduce. I've seen numerous speculation on the finger wrinkles, possibly an adaption.... or possibly just happenstance. Sure today's fingers prune significantly, not sure they would do the same if heavily callused by a decade or two of hunter gathering for all your food. In any case it's not unique to humans, macaques have similar and I suspect it's noticed because they bathe. Couldn't find any information on other primates. [edit for minor spelling/grammar tweaks]
- matthewvincent 7y ago
  No we aren’t the best mammals at swimming but, definitely the best primates. And I think the argument is that the theoretical aquatic ape spent much more time in water than the typical bear.
- montychain 7y ago
  Water ape theory doesn't suggest humans have to be great swimmers to survive at waterside areas. There's a lot of stuff to eat where the water is shallow as well as probably a ton of fruit on the trees near the coast. Bi-pedaling would help in spending a lot of time standing in the shallow waters looking down at river bottom. Humans nimble fingers help with finding and dealing with various shellfish that were probably crawling around in the bottom sludge. The bulk of our hair is on the top of the head - the only place that would be burnt by the sun if you stay all day standing in shallow waters. The shape of our nose (nostrils directed down) are made convenient to stand vertically without getting water into airways. What is the picture of a paradise? A beach with a white sand, sun shining, clear blue water, lots of palm trees near the coast. This is because its our natural habitat. Not deep forests, not savannah. It's tropical beach! If I was to be left alone and naked on an inhabited piece of land I would definitely choose a tropical beach out of all untouched locations on the planet, because it is the most likely place where I would be able to survive.
quixoticelixer- 7y ago
Except we really suck at swimming
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- montychain 7y ago
  That's fine. We were finding food in shallow waters, 1-2 meters deep.
hyperpallium 7y ago
mammalian dive reflex https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex seems common to mammals - is there really an exception for apes? BTW Apparently out of favour, but I like the aquatic ape theory too. Shellfish are high protein, support brain development; coastal settlements found.
cryptonector 7y ago
All mammals have the mammalian diving reflex. I think birds have it too. I suspect it goes all the way back to the first walking fish.
dogma1138 7y ago
We have fairly poor fat insulation and we are hairless so it’s highly unlikely we have evolved in water. Fur combined with skin oils is a great insulator as it is a hydrophobic surface in which air bubbles get trapped proving very good insulation. Our skin is very porous and thin and gets soggy very quickly in water which makes it less grippy and weakens it. We also have terrible physique for swimming (hence why we need to develop complex swimming techniques instead of just paddling) just to put it into perspective a deer can swim as fast as 15 mph, a polar bear can swim at about 7 mph for 10 hours the fastest human swimmer can swim at around 5mph and that’s for a 100m sprint, we have fairly poor buoyancy and a very weak diving reflex compared to other mammals and like most apes we are actually quite terrified of water naturally. Our vision is also severely impacted by water, especially salt water and we have a very water ingress unfriendly nose-ear system. The whole aquatic ape theory doesn’t make any sense it’s almost as crazy as the chimp fucked a pig theory. Like seriously take pretty much any other non ape mammal and you’ll discover that they are so much better at swimming than humans that they might as well be fish compared to us even those who don’t look like they should be able to swim at all. Like freaking mice have been observed swimming for 3 days straight.
- telesilla 7y ago
  Take into account that babies swim underwater without any training, and children can see under water in the ocean (I used to be able to). I'd say modern life has made us less water - friendly. I also like the idea that consuming fish and shellfish contributed to our brain transformation, given omega 3 is highly beneficial for healthy brains.
  - dogma1138 7y ago
    Mammals swim other news in 10, we are terrible at it, babies have a pretty good buoyancy due to their mass to size ratio and fat percentage they however aren’t good swimmers what so ever and they don’t swim under water without training you can teach infants to swim but it’s not like they do freestyle out of the womb. Shellfish have pretty much no omega 3 in them, cold water fish do which are hardly easy to catch in shallow waters. Nuts and seed however are much richer in Omega 3 than most fish. Again the aquatic ape theory does not stand up to any level of scrutiny pretty much any claim it makes can be disproven or attributed to other much likely factors it is pseudoscience in its purest form. The truth is that AAH doesn't match the fossil record (or the fact that apes have been observed swimming even in the wild since it was proposed, the fact that in captivity apes develop similar or higher subcutaneous fat deposits to modern humans, and the average ape still has a higher body fat percentage than a human athlete). Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) circa 3.5Ma was bipedal, Australopithecus anamensis 4.2 Ma was bipedal as well albeit with primitive features for the upper body, Ardipithecus ramidus which is about 4.5 Ma had both habitual tree and bipedal adaptations (e.g. could stand upright and likely walk pretty well but had opposable big toes for grabbing at branches). The earliest clear signs of modern bipedalism (as in a walking gait similar to that of modern humans) is around 3.7 Ma and it's not a skeleton but rather the Laetoli Footprints in Tanzania. For the most part we had direct and "in-direct" ancestors for about 5 million years with varying degree of bipedalism, we likely haven't been eating seafood at for more than 200-300,000 based on remains found at various sites. Lastly Shellfish which would be the easiest food source for the shallow water Aquatic Ape is one of the most common food allergies with 3-4% of the population suffering from it, and it causes Anaphylaxis in almost every case unlike other allergies which vary in severity. If we count in seafood allergy in general which includes finned fish then about 2.5% of the adult population suffers from it. It's quite unlikely that a common food source that impacted our evolutionary path so greatly would have a fairly deadly allergy tied to it. On the other hand humans are not allergic to mammalian meat (unless they are bitten by a few species of a tick and develop and Alpha-gal allergy) at all, and only in extremely rare cases are allergic to poultry.
flukus 7y ago
I like the water ape theory in the romantic sense, but it's important to remember that it's pseudo science. It's fun to think of the ramifications though. Are/can we look for human fossils in the right places? How much of our history is potentially under water and not African caves. Did it help spur fire usage so that we could safely eat fish? Did it influence the out of Africa migration which was mostly coastal (we got to Australia before Europe)? It probably didn't affect our evolution much but I suspect a lot more of our pre-history was spent at least on the shallow ocean than we have evidence for.

sliken 7y ago

Seems like a stretch. We suck at swimming (compared to bears for speed or distance). The breath thing seems unlikely, polar bears for instance seem quite adept at swimming underwater. Hair doesn't seem an issue either, hair (assuming it's not knotted) doesn't easily catch on things, and hairy bears seem quite adept under water. Sure whales used to be hairy (and has some residual hair today), but that's more the lack of need than any lethal hair+water problem that kills them off before they reproduce. I've seen numerous speculation on the finger wrinkles, possibly an adaption.... or possibly just happenstance. Sure today's fingers prune significantly, not sure they would do the same if heavily callused by a decade or two of hunter gathering for all your food. In any case it's not unique to humans, macaques have similar and I suspect it's noticed because they bathe. Couldn't find any information on other primates. [edit for minor spelling/grammar tweaks]

matthewvincent 7y ago
No we aren’t the best mammals at swimming but, definitely the best primates. And I think the argument is that the theoretical aquatic ape spent much more time in water than the typical bear.
montychain 7y ago
Water ape theory doesn't suggest humans have to be great swimmers to survive at waterside areas. There's a lot of stuff to eat where the water is shallow as well as probably a ton of fruit on the trees near the coast. Bi-pedaling would help in spending a lot of time standing in the shallow waters looking down at river bottom. Humans nimble fingers help with finding and dealing with various shellfish that were probably crawling around in the bottom sludge. The bulk of our hair is on the top of the head - the only place that would be burnt by the sun if you stay all day standing in shallow waters. The shape of our nose (nostrils directed down) are made convenient to stand vertically without getting water into airways. What is the picture of a paradise? A beach with a white sand, sun shining, clear blue water, lots of palm trees near the coast. This is because its our natural habitat. Not deep forests, not savannah. It's tropical beach! If I was to be left alone and naked on an inhabited piece of land I would definitely choose a tropical beach out of all untouched locations on the planet, because it is the most likely place where I would be able to survive.

quixoticelixer- 7y ago

Except we really suck at swimming

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
montychain 7y ago
That's fine. We were finding food in shallow waters, 1-2 meters deep.

hyperpallium 7y ago

mammalian dive reflex https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_reflex seems common to mammals - is there really an exception for apes? BTW Apparently out of favour, but I like the aquatic ape theory too. Shellfish are high protein, support brain development; coastal settlements found.

cryptonector 7y ago

All mammals have the mammalian diving reflex. I think birds have it too. I suspect it goes all the way back to the first walking fish.

dogma1138 7y ago

We have fairly poor fat insulation and we are hairless so it’s highly unlikely we have evolved in water. Fur combined with skin oils is a great insulator as it is a hydrophobic surface in which air bubbles get trapped proving very good insulation. Our skin is very porous and thin and gets soggy very quickly in water which makes it less grippy and weakens it. We also have terrible physique for swimming (hence why we need to develop complex swimming techniques instead of just paddling) just to put it into perspective a deer can swim as fast as 15 mph, a polar bear can swim at about 7 mph for 10 hours the fastest human swimmer can swim at around 5mph and that’s for a 100m sprint, we have fairly poor buoyancy and a very weak diving reflex compared to other mammals and like most apes we are actually quite terrified of water naturally. Our vision is also severely impacted by water, especially salt water and we have a very water ingress unfriendly nose-ear system. The whole aquatic ape theory doesn’t make any sense it’s almost as crazy as the chimp fucked a pig theory. Like seriously take pretty much any other non ape mammal and you’ll discover that they are so much better at swimming than humans that they might as well be fish compared to us even those who don’t look like they should be able to swim at all. Like freaking mice have been observed swimming for 3 days straight.

telesilla 7y ago
Take into account that babies swim underwater without any training, and children can see under water in the ocean (I used to be able to). I'd say modern life has made us less water - friendly. I also like the idea that consuming fish and shellfish contributed to our brain transformation, given omega 3 is highly beneficial for healthy brains.
- dogma1138 7y ago
  Mammals swim other news in 10, we are terrible at it, babies have a pretty good buoyancy due to their mass to size ratio and fat percentage they however aren’t good swimmers what so ever and they don’t swim under water without training you can teach infants to swim but it’s not like they do freestyle out of the womb. Shellfish have pretty much no omega 3 in them, cold water fish do which are hardly easy to catch in shallow waters. Nuts and seed however are much richer in Omega 3 than most fish. Again the aquatic ape theory does not stand up to any level of scrutiny pretty much any claim it makes can be disproven or attributed to other much likely factors it is pseudoscience in its purest form. The truth is that AAH doesn't match the fossil record (or the fact that apes have been observed swimming even in the wild since it was proposed, the fact that in captivity apes develop similar or higher subcutaneous fat deposits to modern humans, and the average ape still has a higher body fat percentage than a human athlete). Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) circa 3.5Ma was bipedal, Australopithecus anamensis 4.2 Ma was bipedal as well albeit with primitive features for the upper body, Ardipithecus ramidus which is about 4.5 Ma had both habitual tree and bipedal adaptations (e.g. could stand upright and likely walk pretty well but had opposable big toes for grabbing at branches). The earliest clear signs of modern bipedalism (as in a walking gait similar to that of modern humans) is around 3.7 Ma and it's not a skeleton but rather the Laetoli Footprints in Tanzania. For the most part we had direct and "in-direct" ancestors for about 5 million years with varying degree of bipedalism, we likely haven't been eating seafood at for more than 200-300,000 based on remains found at various sites. Lastly Shellfish which would be the easiest food source for the shallow water Aquatic Ape is one of the most common food allergies with 3-4% of the population suffering from it, and it causes Anaphylaxis in almost every case unlike other allergies which vary in severity. If we count in seafood allergy in general which includes finned fish then about 2.5% of the adult population suffers from it. It's quite unlikely that a common food source that impacted our evolutionary path so greatly would have a fairly deadly allergy tied to it. On the other hand humans are not allergic to mammalian meat (unless they are bitten by a few species of a tick and develop and Alpha-gal allergy) at all, and only in extremely rare cases are allergic to poultry.

flukus 7y ago

I like the water ape theory in the romantic sense, but it's important to remember that it's pseudo science. It's fun to think of the ramifications though. Are/can we look for human fossils in the right places? How much of our history is potentially under water and not African caves. Did it help spur fire usage so that we could safely eat fish? Did it influence the out of Africa migration which was mostly coastal (we got to Australia before Europe)? It probably didn't affect our evolution much but I suspect a lot more of our pre-history was spent at least on the shallow ocean than we have evidence for.