Throughout human history, one of the great questions has always been: where did we come from? Answers, until recently, were religious or philosophical. Sometimes, they were genuine attempts to explain based on observation and contemporary knowledge; sometimes, they were just colourful folklore.
Are
Human Beings Aquatic Apes?
Throughout human history, one of the
great questions has always been: where did we come from? Answers, until
recently, were religious or philosophical. Sometimes, they were genuine attempts
to explain based on observation and contemporary knowledge;
sometimes, they were just colourful folklore.
More recently, in the last two or three
hundred years, modern science has tried to solve this mystery. Charles Darwin,
in the mid-19th century, discovered that animals had developed into different
types across millions of years, first coming out of the water and then, in some
cases, learning to fly or, in others, returning to the water and learning to
live there again, like whales or seals.
This makes sense but the problem is not
in explaining where apes came from but in explaining why
human beings, technically just another primate without a tail are so different from their fellow apes both
physically and in social organisation.
For many decades now, the savanna theory has been the explanation accepted by academics and scientists. This
states that when our monkey ancestors came down from the trees, millions
of years ago, they found themselves in a flat, hot, virtually treeless environment
known as a savanna. It’s the kind of landscape we see in documentaries about African
animals like the zebra, antelope or giraffe.
In this environment, claim the
savanna theorists, it made sense to lose most of our body hair and
start sweating as a method of cooling down. We also learned to stand
on two legs, and walk or run that way, because we could see further, and reach
up to the branches of trees for birds’ eggs or honey. Savanna theory goes on
to explain other special human qualities but, although they are logical up to a point,
they fall apart on closer examination.
If we came down from the trees, surely
we spent the next several hundred millennia in forests not on savanna?
Geologists and biologists agree that our ancestors lived on the
floors of forests for a very long time after coming down from the trees. And,
if we lost our body hair in order to sweat, we chose very badly because, in the
dry heat of a savanna, replacing water is very difficult and so, animals adapted to
that thirsty environment would risk huge loss of body liquid just to cool down
a bit.
Which brings us to one of the strongest
arguments against savanna theory: if it made sense to move on two
legs and, so, be slower than on four, if it made sense to stand up
and show our position to our enemies, if it made sense to sweat litres
of important body liquid under a hot sun and expose our delicate hairless
skins, if all this makes any sense to evolutionary survival on the
savanna, why did no other animal, not even closely related primates,
do any of these things to adapt?
The answer, at least from critics of
savanna theory, is that we didn’t do these things, as a species, to adapt to
the hot, dry savanna. We did them to adapt to living in shallow water, at least part of the
time.
The hairless body and the heavy sweating are
perfectly adapted to creatures which
have easy ways to get water and whose bodies are protected from the sun by
being in the water all day. Now, imagine an ape that moves on all fours,
that wants to get further into a body of water but doesn’t want to drown.
As it moves in, it will try to keep its head above the water which, obviously,
will make it ‘stand up’; a process made far easier by the natural support of
the water all around it.
Next, and very quickly, it would learn
to swim which would help many of the muscles needed for standing up or moving
about on two legs to develop. It is worth noting at this point that
our nearest animal cousins, chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, orangatangs, etc.
are all very poor swimmers.
And talking of swimming, did you know
that human babies are born strong swimmers who instinctively know how to
control their breathing under water? Human babies are also born covered in a
layer of wax.
The only other mammals whose young are born this way are seals and
it is very well understood that this is to protect them from slightly cold
water when they are born into it. Nobody has any explanation, except for
the aquatic ape theory,
as to why human babies have this in common with seals. In fact, in recent
years, giving birth in water has become very popular with human mothers and
especially because it is seen as more natural for both mother and baby.
Another problem for scientists trying
to explain human origins is that the human brain is bigger than the time
evolution would allow – this is known as ‘the anomalous expansion of the
brain’. It grew very, very quickly at one stage in our development. It’s
difficult to explain because the only thing that might cause such a rapid
growth in brain size would be huge amounts of nearly pure protein in the human
diet for many generations.
The only natural way to do that would
be by eating plenty of fish and shell-fish which, at the risk of sounding obvious,
is exactly what an aquatic ape, good at wading and swimming, would be
able to get. As the brain grew, the intelligent new ape began to ‘think’ of
better ways to fish or open shells. This was the stage at which our ancestors invented tool technology
and, from simple hooks and nets for fish, we have
gone on to invent space rockets and travel to the moon.
These are just a few of the main ideas
in ‘aquatic ape’
theory which has very credible explanations for different questions
about human development but the theory is not widely accepted by
scientists. One reason for this rejection of aquatic ape theory is because
it was first proposed by
someone who was not an anthropologist but a pathologist, the German, Max
Westenhöfer, in 1942, and then backed by a marine biologist who had noted
the similarities between marine mammals and human beings.
Many anthropologists had built their careers and professional reputations on being savanna theorists. Indeed, many had published books and articles giving further data to support the savanna theory. If the aquatic ape theory were accepted as the best current explanation, then many anthropologists would see their whole careers and even their subject itself become a laughing stock. Anthropology would like to drown the aquatic ape at birth. However, as mentioned earlier, he is a surprisingly good swimmer.
If you want to watch some videos on this topic, you can click on the links to YouTube videos below.
If you want to answer questions on this article to test how much you understand, you can click on the green box: Finished Reading?
Videos :
1. Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (2:07)
3. Did humans Evolve from Aquatic Mammals? (3:12)
4. Talks about Aquatic Ape (5:31)
6. Theory of Evolution: How did Darwin Come up With it? (5:24)