Aquatic Ape Theory

At school and in scientific programs you might see on TV the explanation of how we evolved from apes to humans is given in the Savannah theory, which goes like this. –

In times of climatic change when forests were retreating in Africa, some of the apes living in trees were forced to come down from the trees and live on the African plains. In this dangerous environment where carnivorous animals like lions and hyenas lived, this ape become a top carnivorous animal itself, through learning how to use tools and weapons to hunt and kill other animals and fight off predators. (This theory is also called the killer-ape theory.)

In the 1960s this was considered to be the undisputed theory of why humans evolved from apes, but one feminist called Elaine Morgan had a number of strong objections to this theory and voiced them in a book called, “The Decent Of Women”. In this book she made the point that in the Savannah theory the role of women and children is not mentioned at all. But when she asked the question what were women and children doing while man the mighty hunter was out hunting, the whole theory fell apart. This is because in the animal kingdom the human baby is more helpless than any other animal. It can take up to two years before it walks and takes 15 to 20 years to grow to full size. So how did mothers ensure the safety of themselves and their children in open plains? Where you had predators like lions, hyenas, leopards, cheetahs and jackals?

Another point was that another primate the baboon also came out of the forest and learnt to live on the plains but it didn’t evolve human like characteristics. There is very little difference between a forest baboon and a savannah baboon.

Elaine Morgan then mentioned a far better theory on how apes evolved into humans, the Aquatic Ape theory, which was proposed by the scientist Sir Alister Hardy. As a marine biologist he noticed the striking similarity between the blubber of marine mammals like seals and dolphins and the layer of subcutaneous fat around humans that wasn’t present in any other primate. He also noticed that all large marine animals were hairless like a human being. From this he concluded that human beings must have once lived in an aquatic environment in their evolution from ape to human.

Unfortunately Sir Alister Hardy received such a negative response from his colleges about his theory that he dropped it, but Elaine Morgan took up its cause and wrote about it further is a series of books called. “The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis”, “The Descent of the Child: Human Evolution from a New Perspective” and “The Scars of Evolution”.

Elaine Morgan in her books developed the theory further and was able to explain not only why human beings were naked and had subcutaneous fat, but why we walk upright, why we talk, why we sweat and cry, and why we have far larger brains than any other ape. Unfortunately even though she was able to make a strong case for the Aquatic Ape Theory male scientists have still preferred the Savannah Theory simply because this theory gives men the staring role in human evolution. But this has changed in recent times when more archaeological finds of early humans undermine the case for the Savannah Theory and support the Aquatic Ape Theory.

There are a number of videos on Youtube on the Aquatic Ape Theory but when doing when doing this hub-page i realised just how difficult it is to navigate around Youtube to find them all. So i have made up a blog where they are all in one place. -

http://theaquaticapetheory.blogspot.com/