Was man more aquatic in the past?
Unprofessional nonsense or worth serious investigation?
In 1960 marine biologist sir Alister Hardy published the notion, that some anatomical and physiological traits of modern man possibly were related with a more aquatic past of human ancestors (1).
Refuted amongst professional paleoantropolgists it was a few years later popularised by writer and journalist Elaine Morgan.
The idea became known as 'The Aquatic Ape Theory' (2).I first got acquainted with the idea in 1968 as baccalaureate student marine biology at Vrije Universteit, Amsterdam, Holland, in the collected writings of Carl Ortwin Sauer (3), an American geographer that I hold in high esteem. He embraced the idea based on his own observations of hunting fishing gathering tribes in the Amazonas and Tierra Del Fuego.
He also did put forward the idea, that the main route of dispersal of man could very well have been coastlines along continents and big river systems and mentioned for example about the peopling of the Americans along the West coast.
Now (2008) it seems to be proven and recently accepted as strong possibility.
He mentioned , that most surviving neolithic human groups were living along seashores, river, lake sides and not on savannas. The savannah dwellers in his opinion were secondary adapted, forced away from the better habitats by dominant intruders (like the Europeans in Australia and Tasmania and the Zulu's in Southern Africa did) in the article Seashore-Primitive Home of Man?Recently, professor Carsten Niemitz added some important observations to the more or less convincing list of arguments (4).
But once proclaimed heretic, unscientific, and not falsifiable it is still stubbornly rejected.Savannah theory refuted, shoreline theory very plausible
Reading more since then, as a professional biologist I used my professional judgment, observing human behaviour and peculiarities in his physiological and anatomical properties.
1. Alister Hardy 1960 "Was Man more aquatic in the past?" New Scientist 7:624
It convinced me that the idea of a more aquatic ancestry made sense. I never felt at ease with the Savannah theory and sometimes the ridiculous ideas put forward by professional 'mainstream' anthropologists and paleoantropolgists in this field. In the meantime this Savannah idea stemming from Raymond Dart, an anatomist and anthropologist. His influence then is still a reason for the repudiating of a possible more (semi-) aquatic habitat for our ancestors.
If you read how Alister Hardy even is ridiculed as person (continued). For me it is the other way around: the Savannah concept is weak, based as it is on dry bones and shattered contexts.
The shoreline concept is based on properties of present day very alive and complete individuals of Homo sapiens. It is a pity, we don't have a time machine to beam one of us to a few million of years ago to find out who's the winner......
Based on the collected facts and arguments, I constructed a package intended to compile it all in an interactive internet publication.
Alister Hardy, Elaine Morgan and Carl Ortwin Sauer had to rely on written material and personal information.
I could fully exploit the advantages of the world wide web, the superhuman "memory" available to us all nowadays. And I was amazed about the wealth of information available (and all the shit that is out there also, of course..).
2. Elaine Morgan 1982 "The aquatic ape" (Renewed edition) Souvenir London
3. Carl Ortwin Sauer (1962) Seashore-Primitive Home of Man? Read the e-book excerpt form "Land and Life"Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 106, pp. 41-47
4. Carsten Niemitz "A Theory on the Evolution of Human Bipedalism - Die Amphibische Generalistentheorie,
“Das Geheimniss des Aufrechten Ganges”
5. Scott Simpson: A Female Homo erectus Pelvis from Gona, Ethiopia
Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
Science, november 14, DOI: 10.1126/science.1163592.
Our Babies can swim and dive
Aquatic reflexes in Newborn humans
Project about baby swimming and the very early adaptations concerned.
Project over babyzwemmen en de aanpassingen die zij al vroeg vertonen.
DARWIN and his seacoast dweller companions on the the Beagle
Het belang van het contact dat Darwin met de oorspronkelijke Alacaluf van Tierra del Fuego en Patagonie heeft gehad had.
The important connection of charles Darwin with the Fuegan and Patagonian Alacaluf during his trip from England to South America.
Click to view original drawing © dirk meijers
Dirk Jan Willem Meijers
MSc biology oceanography
retired teacher and manager general sciences Zuyderzee college
Cartoonist
Taxi driver for disabled people
info@shoreline-man.name
Personal website
