I just want to say that my son is pretty bad at swimming.
I quickly add, for a 3 year old human, he’s pretty darn good at it. Amanda’s family is very aquatic, as tends to happen when everyone spends several weeks per year (or longer) on the edge of a lake. They can all ski really well, they can all swim really well, etc. etc. So, very soon after my son was born, his grandfather started to bring him to age-appropriate swimming lessons. He is now 37 months old and has been to a swimming lesson almost every week. In addition to to that, Amanda brings him to the pool pretty close to once a week, often more. In addition to that, during the summer, he has spent several days at the lake and gone in once or twice almost every day the conditions allowed. In short, he should be about as good a swimmer as any 3 year old.
But still, this means he can drag himself underwater for several bananas (the unit of time used by swimming instructors, apparently), and he can thrash around moving his body across the surface several inches in a predetermined direction. He can get himself to the bottom of a pool as deep as he is tall and easily pick up a ring or some other object, and he can float around in various positions comfortably.
So he swims better than a new born through 1 month old hippo (they can’t swim at all, really) but he’s nowhere near as good as dolphin. But the thing is, this is after three years. Had Amanda and I been aquatic apes, my son would not have survived to this ripe old age. The diving reflex, proffered as evidence for an aquatic stage, during which we spent considerable time in (not near, in) water, happens in mammals generally and alone is not enough to count as a retained adaptation suggesting an earlier evolutionary stage. If human ancestors subsequent to the split with chimpanzees went through a significant aquatic phase (not just living near water, which is one of the backpedaled versions of the AAT) then our children would probably … not necessarily but probably … be much better at swimming than they are.
This does not disprove the Aquatic Ape Theory. Nor does a single nail secure a coffin. But it certainly does not inspire confidence in the idea.
My son tells me that he plans, someday, to teach me to swim.
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#285
Greg wrote:
Are you proposing that there are specific physical traits that are better explained by aquatic adaptations than the running hypothesis, or are you just annoyed by the running hypothesis. In other words, why can’t they both be true, or is the running hypothesis somehow problematic for that AAT. If so, what specific traits (not behaviors or adaptations, but traits on fossils) are you incorporating in AAT and saying that they are not part of the running hypothesis?
Extraordinarily heavy bones (much heavier than in gorillas) for a start, but also the fact that Homo erectus had longer and more horizontal femoral necks, shorter legs, wider pelvis, flattened femur lacking pilasters, an unusual poise to the head (less basicranial flexion), long low brain case, and differences in the vertebral canal and the shape of the thorax that have led some people to question how efficient these creatures were as terrestrial bipeds.
The idea that Homo erectus was an endurance runner, as far as can be seen, is based on the fact that some humans today can endurance run. But even today humans are slow and inefficient runners compared to real runners like antelopes and dogs, and we need to carry water, need shoes, tracking skills, poisons, projectile weapons etc., to be successful running hunters. Homo erectus, if we take the heavy bones, wider hips and shorter legs alone, would have been slower and less efficient. So that’s evidence that comes straight from the fossil record.
Would these features have helped in an underwater foraging lifestyle. Yes! Unexpectedly heavy bones are a trait of animals that forage in relatively shallow water, so are wide bodies, and the aligned body of ‘erectine grade’ species. It makes perfect sense if all the data are considered together, but for some reason people seem stuck on this idea that Homo erectus was running over open savannas.
#294 I don’t understand your questions, Greg.
Littoral adaptations in Homo (pachyosteosclerosis, paltycephaly, platymeria, very short toes, projecting nostrils, intercontinental dispersal, island colonisation…), all these appear apparently (early) Pleistocene in the fossil record.
About hands: in many instances do humans have more primitive (monkey-like, although rel.broader) hands than apes, who (except gorillas) got longer (chimps) or much longer (pongids & hylobatids) hands (for brachiation, suspension, knuckle-walking resp.).
Hope this helps?
“At the time of the split (c 5 Ma?) chimp ancestors & human ancestors were identical, so AAT is not about the Homo/Pan split. ”
Now you are being either stupid or disrespectful and I do not appreciate that. That is really obnoxious.
“At the time of the split (c 5 Ma?) chimp ancestors & human ancestors were identical, so AAT is not about the Homo/Pan split. ”
Now you are being either stupid or disrespectful and I do not appreciate that. That is really obnoxious.
“AAT is about the differences between between humans & chimps-bonobos. These differences appeared at some time after the split (i.e. in the last c 5 Ma, some differences perhaps early, others perhaps late).”
So you don’t have an answer. It is about the split but it could have happened millions of years later so it is not about the split.
Please clarify and do so clearly and respectfully. My patience is running thing. Not entirely your fault by I advice you to be careful.
#286
Greg wrote:
“feeding on waterside & shallow aquatic plants & animals including hard-shelled foods (stone tools), stranded whales (Dungo V) & ungulates drowned or killed in shallow water, reedbeds or mud.”
So one could rephrase your statement this way, right?
Homo, from the earliest pre-erectus grade through later middle or early-late pleistocene archaic Homo sapiens feed primarily on waterside & shallow aquatic plants & animals including hard-shelled foods (stone tools), stranded whales (Dungo V) & ungulates drowned or killed in shallow water, reedbeds or mud. Other sources of food were incidental. They did not occupy habitats where these resources were not sufficiently available all year round that these would be the primary diet.
It’s not far from what we believe, though we have never said other (non-waterside foods) were incidental. Vitamin C is obviously a very important nutrient for humans, and it is possible that the best source of this were terrestrial food sources such as fruit. There may have been times (seasonally or for certain populations), when terrestrial foods may have been much more than incidental, and may have indeed been essential and even more important than aquatic resources.
But if they weren’t relying on underwater foraging, there’d be no need for them to retain the heavy bones, which really are a disadvantage on land, so we suspect they (at least those populations with extraordinarily heavy bones) were regular (though part-time) underwater foragers in relatively shallow waters.
Hope these answers help you at least see what we are trying to argue, Greg, whether you agree or not.
Best regards.
#293
“How does this “Homo, from the earliest pre-erectus grade through later middle or early-late pleistocene archaic homo sapiens feed primarily on waterside & shallow aquatic plants & animals including hard-shelled foods (stone tools), stranded whales (Dungo V) & ungulates drowned or killed in shallow water, reedbeds or mud.” (I’ll use my rephrasing) relate to long distance water crossing?”
I didn’t say anyhting about “archaic homo sapiens” nor about “pre-erectus grade”, I spoke about “archaic Homo”, i.e. not sapiens, but long+flat-skulled & usu.thick-boned pre-sapiens Homo. H.sapiens, in fact, lost the long skulls & got thinner skulls, suggesting they didn’t dive any more (or rarely), but instead got very long (tibias) & straight legs & more basi-cranial flexion (directing the eyes more downward), suggesting more wading.
“long distance water crossing”: You mean Flores? Reaching Flores is far more likely for semi-aquatic animals than for savanna animals, don’t you think? In any case, pachyostosis shows excellent diving skills. H.sapiens (ex-semi-aquatic) can cross the Chanel (32 km), so why not erectus (semi-aquatic) to Flores (18 km)?
Stephen, thanks a lot for all our answers, I fully agree, of course, and hope they help Greg & others understand what we want to say – although I thought our papers were clear enough?? google “Laden blog Verhaegen”, “econiche Homo”, “aquarboreal”, “evolution Verhaegen”, “pachyosteosclerosis Homo” etc.
Hi Greg, you wrote:
“At the time of the split (c 5 Ma?) chimp ancestors & human ancestors were identical, so AAT is not about the Homo/Pan split. ”
Now you are being either stupid or disrespectful and I do not appreciate that. That is really obnoxious.
“AAT is about the differences between between humans & chimps-bonobos. These differences appeared at some time after the split (i.e. in the last c 5 Ma, some differences perhaps early, others perhaps late).”
So you don’t have an answer. It is about the split but it could have happened millions of years later so it is not about the split.
Please clarify and do so clearly and respectfully. My patience is running thing. Not entirely your fault by I advice you to be careful.
🙂 Please do so respectfully?
I don’t think Marc called anybody stupid or obnoxious? 🙂
But it’s clear you’re not understanding what Marc is arguing.
Pan and Homo obviously split at some time in the past. Our idea is that Homo, may have become isolated from Pan in coastal forests, while Pan remained in inland forests. At that time they were essentially identical, so what Marc is saying is that it wasn’t ‘AAT’ that caused the split (as Elaine apparently believed).
Living in coastal forests, already adapted to feeding in flooded forests (aquarboreal model), our argument is that these populations gradually also learned to gather shellfish, at first perhaps by plucking them off mangrove roots as one would fruit from branches (small evolutionary step), but then also, over millions of years, also learning to forage underwater for them (as modern humans do today). Our argument is that, according to the fossil record, evidence of this transition is only apparent in the Pleistocene. But did some of these features evolve earlier and there is just no fossil record? It’s possible but difficult to know.
What we do know is that heavy boned Homo erectus appears through out the old world from China to England, during the Pleistocene, and we argue that they did this by dispersing around coasts and up rivers, collecting food from these waterside habitats along the way.
Best regards.
Reply #314
There’s vitamin C in raw oysters.
“At the time of the split (c 5 Ma?) chimp ancestors & human ancestors were identical, so AAT is not about the Homo/Pan split. ”
Now you are being either stupid or disrespectful and I do not appreciate that. That is really obnoxious.
???
Before insulting me, I advise you to read the recent literature on AAT: I am not tho one who is being either stupid or disrespectful here. I tried but am apparently unable to help you here: I have the impression that you might have some “unproven assumptions & common misunderstandings” about what AAT is or should be in your eyes. I think I’ve had enough patience with you: you first have to inform, Greg. Some recent relevant publications, you can always ask me the pdf:
– M Verhaegen, P-F Puech & S Munro 2002 “Aquarboreal ancestors?” Trends in Ecol & Evol 17:212-7, can easily be found by googling “aquarboreal”
– M Verhaegen & S Munro 2002 “The continental shelf hypothesis” Nutr Health 16:25-27
– M Verhaegen, S Munro, M Vaneechoutte, R Bender & N Oser 2007 “The original econiche of the genus Homo: open plain or waterside?”:155-186 in SI Muño 2007 “Ecology Research Progress” Nova NY, can easily be found by googling “econiche Homo”, please read it carefully
– S Munro & M Verhaegen 2011 “Pachyosteosclerosis in archaic Homo: heavy skulls for diving, heavy legs for wading?”:82-105 in M Vaneechoutte, A Kuliukas & M Verhaegen eds 2011 “Was Man More Aquatic in the Past? Fifty Years after Alister Hardy: Waterside Hypotheses of Human Evolution” eBook Bentham Sci Publ
– M Verhaegen, S Munro, P-F Puech & M Vaneechoutte 2011 “Early Hominoids: orthograde aquarboreals in flooded forests?” ibid.:67-81
– M Verhaegen & S Munro 2011 “Pachyosteosclerosis suggests archaic Homo frequently collected sessile littoral foods” HOMO J compar hum Biol 62:237-247
– M Vaneechoutte, S Munro & M Verhaegen 2012 “Reply to John Langdon’s review of the eBook: Was Man more aquatic in the past?” HOMO J compar hum Biol 63:496-503
– M Verhaegen 2013 “Common misconceptions and unproven assumptions about the aquatic ape theory” at your own blog 30.1.13
– M Verhaegen 2013 “The aquatic ape evolves: common misconceptions and unproven assumptions about the so-called Aquatic Ape Hypothesis” Hum Evol 28:237-266
– S Munro 2013 “Endurance running versus underwater foraging: an antomical and palaeoecological perspective” Hum Evol 28:201-212
– several other papers on AAT (the proceedings of the Congress “Human Evolution” in London last year with Don Johanson & David Attenborough) with which can be found in 2 editions of Hum.Evolution:
SPECIAL EDITION PART 1 (end 2013)
– P Rhys-Evans “Introduction”
– S Oppenheimer “Human’s Association with Water Bodies: the ‘Exaggerated Diving Reflex’ and its Relationship with the Evolutionary Allometry of Human Pelvic and Brain Sizes”
– JH Langdon “Human Ecological Breadth: Why Neither Savanna nor Aquatic Hypotheses can Hold Water”
– S Munro “Endurance Running versus Underwater Foraging: an Anatomical and Palaeoecological Perspective”
– A Kuliukas “Wading Hypotheses of the Origin of Human Bipedalism”
– M Verhaegen “The Aquatic Ape evolves: Common Misconceptions and Unproven Assumptions about the So-Called Aquatic Ape Hypothesis”
– CL Broadhurst & M Crawford “The Epigenetic Emergence of Culture at the Coastline: Interaction of Genes, Nutrition, Environment and Demography”
SPECIAL EDITION PART 2 (begin 2014) with 12 contributions
” I think I’ve had enough patience with you: you first have to inform, Greg.” MV
Oh yes, right on schedule. Watch us now as we wave our arms and stamp our feet. Nothing is supported but that doesn’t matter. Just mix it with a little sugar, put a clothespin on your nose and ~swallow our story uncritically~. Don’t ask any awkward questions and you’ll fit right in.
Here’s an awkward question. How do you claim convergence when you’ve failed to demonstrate it? Where is the NUL hypothesis in all this handwaving?
Greg, I seriously doubt you will get a rational answer from either Munro or Marc. to the numerous errors in their arguments.
The unbelievable convoluted twaddle they peddle in their comments on the relevance of the Australopithecus, shows why John Hawks was right in 2005, 2009 and is today, when he explained why the AAT (an its many variations) is something anthropologists, do not want
to waste their time on.
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/pseudoscience/aquatic_ape_theory.html
John Hawks could’ve shortened his blog article to this:
(Head) Why anthropologists don’t accept the Aquatic Ape Theory
(Body) Because anthropologists can’t get credit for its discovery.
“I don’t think Marc called anybody stupid or obnoxious?” SM
Then you haven’t read anything he’s written. Take a stroll through Sci.Anthro.Paleo sometime. Pity that you seem to have hitched your wagon to that ol’ plow horse.
“What we do know is that heavy boned Homo erectus appears through out the old world from China to England, during the Pleistocene, and we argue that they did this by dispersing around coasts and up rivers, collecting food from these waterside habitats along the way.” SM
That’s not ~all~ you’re arguing, is it? No, you’ve got a laundry list of talking points that you claim is a direct result of association with water. You haven’t established that HE was unusually heavy boned and even if you had, you couldn’t point to the reason why. Here’s your KNM-WT 15000 –put a hoodie and some sweat pants on him and he could be waiting for a bus.
http://donsmaps.com/images29/turkanaboy.jpg
Good luck with your career.
You know what would be great, Chris? If you took *all* the credit for the AAT. I’m sure that would come as great relief to some who’ve had second thoughts. Why don’t you surprise everybody and post some evidence in support of your (cough) hypothesis, eh kid? *Surprise everybody* –even yourself.
The credit ain’t mine, either. You know who has her come-uppin coming.
Elaine Morgan for the Darwin-Wallace medal. Posthumously.
Firstly, I don’t see any evidence there (whew, that was close).
Secondly, I’d like to play this new wet ape game too. How ’bout Pol Pot for Nobel Peace Prize (posthumously, of course).
Right, dude, comparing Elaine Morgan and Pol Pot makes perfect sense.
What makes perfect sense, dude, is comparing Elaine Morgan ~ Darwin-Wallace with Pol Pot ~ Nobel Peace Prize. You don’t see the sense there? I’m shocked.
“But it’s clear you’re not understanding what Marc is arguing.”
I am making an honest effort to understand but this is your point being made, so you need to put some effort into this too. This particular comment is helpful, thanks.
“Pan and Homo obviously split at some time in the past. Our idea is that Homo, may have become isolated from Pan in coastal forests, while Pan remained in inland forests. At that time they were essentially identical, so what Marc is saying is that it wasn’t ‘AAT’ that caused the split (as Elaine apparently believed).”
So the AAT specifically addresses the ape-human split, suggesting that two sub populations of the LCA lived in different habitats with different selection pressures and this got the thing going. Do I have that right?
“Living in coastal forests, already adapted to feeding in flooded forests (aquarboreal model), our argument is that these populations gradually also learned to gather shellfish, at first perhaps by plucking them off mangrove roots as one would fruit from branches (small evolutionary step), but then also, over millions of years, also learning to forage underwater for them (as modern humans do today). Our argument is that, according to the fossil record, evidence of this transition is only apparent in the Pleistocene. But did some of these features evolve earlier and there is just no fossil record? It’s possible but difficult to know.”
OK, this may need a bit more parsing out. The Ape-human split happened in the Miocene, let’s say 5-6mya. The Pleistocene is 2.6 these days. So, between ~5 and 2.6 you are saying that there is no physical evidence for AAT adaptations though the model suggests that the initial split involving the above mentioned habitats would have been a continued selective force. Are you specifically saying that for the most part, AAT related Pleistocene adaptations are not seen in the fossil record because those particular hominids do not happen to be in the fossil record?
“What we do know is that heavy boned Homo erectus appears through out the old world from China to England, during the Pleistocene, and we argue that they did this by dispersing around coasts and up rivers, collecting food from these waterside habitats along the way.”
So with this and the other things that have been noted, I take this to mean that some, and eventually all/most, of the hominids post 2.6, starting with some subset of that mess we call habilis, are showing distinct AAT adaptations related to coasts and larger rivers and waterside adaptations being primary. Another way of saying this might be that the hominids that were AAT adpating/adapted between ~5 and 2.6mya have shifted into visibility in the fossil record and also are continuing to change under selection. Right?
If so, I have a small additional question that may not be answerable or just may be opinion but I’ll give it at try. Was there also a change in the kind or level of AAT related selection at around 2.6, or is the appearance of these adaptations mainly a matter of what gets spotted in the fossil record? In other words, is there a sort of AAT 1.0 pre 2.6mya followed by an AAT 2.0 after 2.6, or is this all mainly a streetlamp phenomenon?
Final question along these lines: I am not an aquatic ape. Most people I know aren’t. The basketmaker Pueblo people of the American Southwest weren’t. Generally, modern humans are not. So, what is the time frame for and what are the shifts in evidence away from AAT adaptations? Is this essentially synonymous in your opinion with gracilization? Or something else?
Reply #328
“What makes perfect sense, dude, is comparing Elaine Morgan ~ Darwin-Wallace with Pol Pot ~ Nobel Peace Prize. You don’t see the sense there? I’m shocked.”
No, I do not. Pol Pot was a mad mass murderer, that sought to relieve the pressure of over population by any means necessary. Elaine Morgan was an amateur scientist, that responded to a mistreated discovery into ourselves. Pol Pot sought no peace, but only blood, and is therefore nowhere near relevant for an honorary peace recognition. Elaine Morgan sought to put an end to detrimental anthropocentrism in a stagnant scientific field, and is therefore quite relevant for one of its highest honors.
So no, I don’t see any sense whatsoever in your analogy, and you’re a fucking asshole for positing it.
Reply #329
“Final question along these lines: I am not an aquatic ape. Most people I know aren’t. The basketmaker Pueblo people of the American Southwest weren’t. Generally, modern humans are not.”
Greg, let me throw a question back at you. Do you take a shower every day? Have you ever taken your children down to the seaside? Do your personal habitat (house) have its own pool? Did your honeymoon by any chance go to a “romantic” tropical beach somewhere?
These are ethological aquatic observations about ourselves. My point is, that sometimes you can’t see the forest for all them damn trees.
Most people don’t take showers everyday, so no cherry picking from modern society. Not big on swimming, myself. My wife’s family is part fish, though. My son has been taking swimming lessons since he was born. Four years is a long time … oh never mind, see the blog post above!
Anyway, so, let me rephrase your answer back to you to make sure I get it right. The AAT adaptations are still very much in effect so overall modern human adaptations are the same set of adaptations as the AAT adaptations, no changes have occurred over the last several tens of thousands of years.
Correct?
I’m just trying to get the AAT stated clearly.
That many peoples aren’t bathing today is due to lack of ressources in an over populated human world. Human bathing is a very old practice and evident in some of the oldest surviving cultures and structures build. Christians bathe their newborns, muslims bathe their dead, hindus bathe themselves in the Ganges. There’s a frickin’ bathtub with dolphin frescoes in the palace of Minos from 1500 BC, one of the oldest surviving structures in Europe. The Roman empire had thousands of public and private bath houses, comparable to our modern day public pools. Bathing disappeared from European standard for many centuries after the fall of the Roman empire, but that was a fluke based on loss of ressources, like some places in Asia today, and at the same time as the European “dark ages”, the Islamic, Hindu, Chinese and even Viking cultures bathed extensively. Human bathing is not a recent 19th century activity, hell, it may be millions of years old.
You’re saying it yourself, parts of your immediate family is aquatically inclined, at least much more than any other ape specimen would be expected to be out of its own free will. Try to bathe a cat and you’ll see the difference.
As to the time line, opinions vary between aquatic proponents. Marc V. has high confidence in his personal conclusions (which I personally think borders on over confidence at times), where someone like Morgan generally showed more flexibility. Personally, I find it likely with gradual transition to more and more aquaticism, which can also apply to earlier forms, e.g. hominin australopiths. You’re right, an AAT 1.0 and 2.0 is quite possible. There’s no set consensus (among aquatic proponents) about that at this time.
And yes, changes can have appeared also within 10kya’s. Somebody like Chan Wang-Chak have expressed, that endurance running could’ve had an influence on human evolution after or concurrent with an aquatic phase, but since e.g. archaic Homo sapiens. In many human populations, e.g. 10.000 years of agriculture have had influence on lactose tolerance. My own ethnicity, Scandinavian, originates from mesolithic big game hunters from the Asian plains, which could be why we are prone to more hairy bodies than e.g. the Japanese, that originates from SE Asian archipelago and costal regions. I.e. more terrestrial cultures redevelop hair cover compared to costal cultures (not compared to other simians, though). These could be examples of changes that have occurred over the last number of tens of thousands of years. Because evolution is always on. The Jewish populations of Scandinavia have in 4-600 years time evolved from an original brownish skin pigmentation (according to sources, like the ones of recent muslim immigrants to Scandinavia) to one as pale as the gentile population, this as an adaptation to less solar radiation in the North. Something similar may be accurring with contemporary Afro-American populations in North America, many today being remarkedly paler than their original Nigerian-Congolese relatives.
“That many peoples aren’t bathing today is due to lack of ressources in an over populated human world. ”
We know from anthropology that bathing varies across human cultures. But yes some kind of bathing is widespread, but really, there are groups where it is virtually non existent.
But that’s probably not that important. My question is still open: Is the level to which Homo sapiens is AAT complaint, as it were, the same now as it was 50,000 years ago, more, or less? (I think that’s a good way to ask the question).
The last 50kya, we have managed to spread to almost the entire globe (even though we’re concentrated along rivers and coasts, but whatever), which bring a whole new host of selective pressures in many new habitats, and the big game changer has been agriculture the last 10kya. I can’t answer, whether the aquatic influence has been constant in that period, it would be like trying to answer a similar question about the elephant family and their aquatic evolution. All that we can see, is that we have these aquatic markers, like elephants do. An aquatic heritage, if you will. One, that the other apes don’t seem to have, at least not as profound.
And with the nutrion observations (PUFA’s, Iodine, etc.) for the human brain, the lesson from AAH/AAT is that the success of agriculture (which has its benefits in terms of securing foods across seasons) risk having detrimental costs to our encephalization (actually, that would explain a lot of what the hell we’re doing as a species). Because our brain originally evolved on a diet of seafood, that we’re now moving away from in order to feed a large world population.
Please stop laughing at AAH long enough to fully comprehend the repurcussions of that. That some bookselling amateur stand to gain the recognition for this discovery mustn’t be an excuse to keep neglecting these important studies. It’d be irresponsible on a gross level. It’d only be stemming from our ape dominance behavior, not scientific inquiry. And then Academia’d be no better than dumb politicians.
Are you linking the current relative concentration of the population along coasts and large rivers today to the AAT then?
Yes. The most expensive housing in a region is most often located at waterfronts, ’cause that’s where we all wish to have our habitat, if we have a choice (= money, etc.).
Some have argued, that we are concentrated at waterfronts, because agriculture needs rich soil, which is most concentrated along river beds (due to seasonal floods bringing nutrients). That we live where the food is, and that agriculture is the cause for us only recently concentrating around waterfronts. But then that doesn’t explain, why we don’t live in droves in the Russian plains or the North American Midwest, ’cause that’s just as much where the food is. No, we huddle together in droves along rivers and coastlines, most notably in China and India. Because we want to. Just these two river-dominated nations have three eights of the entire human population. People often say, that we live everywhere. I think it’s somewhat unfounded assumption, I’d say we have a clear preference for waterfronts. And yes, AAH provides a cause for that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Population_density_with_key.png
That map kills your argument dead in relation to modern humans and rivers.
http://wiki.alternatehistory.com/lib/exe/fetch.php/resources/uberbam_rivers_noborders.png
Huh? How? Try superimpose the two maps over each other. Or with this one:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Vegetation_with_cities.png
Elaine is to [scientific prizes] as Pol Pot is to the Peace Prize. Nowhere amongst all that is any indication that I equate Elaine with Pol. That you take this upside down and then attack it is symptomatic of your larger problem. You don’t think so good and it’s evident *every time* you hit enter.
Congratulations.
Oh yes. Post agriculture population centers are located on river systems –the Ganges, the Nile, the Yangtze, the Tigris and Euphrates, etc. Hence, the AAT must be correct.
Oh, and showers.
Brilliant.
Yeah, showers. Try not taking a bath for three days and see if the other apes wanna talk to you. With that descended larynx of theirs.
#337
Throughout recorded history , there has been obvious advantage for locating cities on the coast and near major rivers. An for concentrating the available workforce in those waterside cities, and that was and is trade.
I have to ask this, why is it easier to freigh goods along water bodies than over land?
Exactly, it isn’t. Maybe the difference is the same, either one carries its own challenges. One is dependent on inventing boating, and the other of inventing husbandry (okay, I’m talking out of Sid Meier’s Civilization here).
What powered a sailing ship in ages past, and how many trucks, rail wagons would
be needed to shift the tonnage of one of today’s largest container ships?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A6rsk_Mc-Kinney_M%C3%B8ller_%28ship%29
I think it’s more apt to compare dugouts and camels for the first couple of civilizations. Incidentally, boating is perhaps as old as 130kya (Crete, of all places) and husbandry perhaps 10kya (a carrying animal like the ox). Plus some wonder how Homo erectus made it to Flores perhaps already 840kya (this based on tools found). Then of course the question is why we’re inclined to boating before domesticating terrestrial animals?
Hi Greg, I’ve tried to make the conversation a little easier to follow by adding our initials. The quotes you refer to of mine have “quote marks”
SM “But it’s clear you’re not understanding what Marc is arguing.”
GL I am making an honest effort to understand but this is your point being made, so you need to put some effort into this too. This particular comment is helpful, thanks.
SM: “Pan and Homo obviously split at some time in the past. Our idea is that Homo, may have become isolated from Pan in coastal forests, while Pan remained in inland forests. At that time they were essentially identical, so what Marc is saying is that it wasn’t ‘AAT’ that caused the split (as Elaine apparently believed).”
GL: So the AAT specifically addresses the ape-human split, suggesting that two sub populations of the LCA lived in different habitats with different selection pressures and this got the thing going. Do I have that right?
SM: Not exactly. We’re not suggesting the split itself, ‘got things going’ as you put it, nor that the initial split necessarily had anything to do with the AAT. We believe the population that gave rise to the genera Pan and Homo was ‘aquarboreal’, possibly living in coastal forests that were sometimes flooded. Homo simply remained in those littoral forests, whereas Pan may have become separated from Homo when the original forest they shared with Homo (as one population) became fragmented, with Pan in the inland forests now no longer connected with the coast. In our scenario, the Homo branch, being on the coast, and then being subjected to Pleistocene cooling and drying (less trees, more continental shelf) were in a position to add valuable protein (shellfish) to their diet, whereas inland chimps evolved to live in drier conditions, becoming more quadrupedal.
SM: “Living in coastal forests, already adapted to feeding in flooded forests (aquarboreal model), our argument is that these populations gradually also learned to gather shellfish, at first perhaps by plucking them off mangrove roots as one would fruit from branches (small evolutionary step), but then also, over millions of years, also learning to forage underwater for them (as modern humans do today). Our argument is that, according to the fossil record, evidence of this transition is only apparent in the Pleistocene. But did some of these features evolve earlier and there is just no fossil record? It’s possible but difficult to know.”
GL: OK, this may need a bit more parsing out. The Ape-human split happened in the Miocene, let’s say 5-6mya. The Pleistocene is 2.6 these days. So, between ~5 and 2.6 you are saying that there is no physical evidence for AAT adaptations though the model suggests that the initial split involving the above mentioned habitats would have been a continued selective force. Are you specifically saying that for the most part, AAT related Pleistocene adaptations are not seen in the fossil record because those particular hominids do not happen to be in the fossil record?
SM: The initial split may not have been, as you term it ‘a continued selective force’. The main difference between the ‘aquarboreal’ phase and the ‘littoral’ phase (that includes regular though part-time underwater foraging), as far as I see it, is that in the littoral phase (‘erectine grade’) hominins are no longer reliant on trees, therefore they can afford to have larger and heavier bodies, including the large brains and heavy skulls which would probably be a disadvantage in a still arboreal species. During the Pliocene, the 5 to 2.6 Ma you refer to, human ancestors may still have been what we call aquarboreal, so no, we wouldn’t expect any of the features we see in ‘erectine grade’ hominins, who we see as no longer dependent on trees, with larger and more streamlined bodies, large brains and heavy skeletons, to show up in the fossil record. In other words, the split placed them in different geographic regions, and being at the coast (in forests) human ancestors may well have been learning how to gather shellfish even perhaps from under water, but if they were still living in trees (and why not if there were still plenty of trees and associated fruit), they may have been restricted in terms of how large their bodies and brains could grow, and the thick bones and linear body. At the beginning of the Pleistocene (ice ages), vast areas on the continental shelf became exposed (sea levels lowered), at first these would have been shallow water habitats no doubt rich in shellfish. The ice ages also meant less rainfall (more water was locked at the poles in icecaps) and therefore forests would have become fragmented, dwindling and in some places disappearing. We argue that it may have been this event that was the catalyst for the evolution of the ‘erectine grade’ hominins that appear in the fossil record in the Pleistocene (AAT), that they abandoned the trees which no longer were as extensive and therefore did not offer the same amount of food, and instead became more dependent on protein and fats that coincidentally helped fuel the growth of a large brain, and they developed a larger more streamlined body and heavy skeletons and breath control to help them forage for this food underwater, but also continued to use the land, and move around coasts and up rivers, using tools to open shells and also butcher land animals which they could have hunted or scavenged.
SM: “What we do know is that heavy boned Homo erectus appears throughout the old world from China to England, during the Pleistocene, and we argue that they did this by dispersing around coasts and up rivers, collecting food from these waterside habitats along the way.”
GL: So with this and the other things that have been noted, I take this to mean that some, and eventually all/most, of the hominids post 2.6, starting with some subset of that mess we call habilis, are showing distinct AAT adaptations related to coasts and larger rivers and waterside adaptations being primary. Another way of saying this might be that the hominids that were AAT adpating/adapted between ~5 and 2.6mya have shifted into visibility in the fossil record and also are continuing to change under selection. Right?
SM: I think I understand your question. If human ancestors between 5 and 2.6 Ma were in coastal forests they may well have been aquarboreal and in that case may have been not much different to australopiths (perhaps Homo habilis-like?). It is possible that we begin to see large brained and large linear bodied ‘erectine grade’ fossils only in the Pleistocene because that is when they first evolved (because of the ice ages). The other possibility is that there were ‘erectine grade’ species earlier, but they are invisible to the fossil record because there are no coastal sites from East Africa or indeed much of the Indian Ocean from the Pliocene (certainly that I am aware of), but this is pure speculation.
GL: If so, I have a small additional question that may not be answerable or just may be opinion but I’ll give it at try. Was there also a change in the kind or level of AAT related selection at around 2.6, or is the appearance of these adaptations mainly a matter of what gets spotted in the fossil record? In other words, is there a sort of AAT 1.0 pre 2.6mya followed by an AAT 2.0 after 2.6, or is this all mainly a streetlamp phenomenon?
SM: It’s of course all speculative because we simply do not have any fossils of Homo before 2.6Ma, or from the east African coast (Indian Ocean), which is where we place them during this period.
But my own opinion, is that during this time human ancestors may well have retained the climbing abilities they no doubt shared with the LCA, and therefore there may not have been any ‘erectine grade’ species from this earlier period (in other words no AAT 1.0 pre 2.6Ma). That’s not to say the period was irrelevant. Learning to harvest shellfish, at first off tree trunks (as I said before, not a huge evolutionary step for a hominoid already adept at plucking hard shelled fruits from trees), then off rocks and then by digging in the sand on the beach, and then by going into the shallow water and finally by actually diving under the water, are all small evolutionary steps, but may well have taken millions of years to develop. So I guess whereas traditional anthropology has australopiths wandering around the savanna-mosaic in a type of nursery learning how to run after large mammals, we have human ancestors in coastal forests, in a type of nursery, learning how to collect and consume shellfish, if that makes sense.
GL: Final question along these lines: I am not an aquatic ape. Most people I know aren’t. The basketmaker Pueblo people of the American Southwest weren’t. Generally, modern humans are not. So, what is the time frame for and what are the shifts in evidence away from AAT adaptations? Is this essentially synonymous in your opinion with gracilization? Or something else?
SM: Yes, gracilization along with longer legs (i.e., tibia), less streamlined skull (no longer long and low but upright and domed), the development of a chin and more basicranial flexion, femoral bones that are no longer flattened and have a pilaster, shorter femoral necks that aren’t as horizontal, narrower hips. This all occurs with Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans), so I’d guess this was when humans became less reliant on underwater foraging and more terrestrially adapted, with some populations abandoning permanent water completely. The fossil record suggests this happened sometime in the last few hundred thousand years. As they became more terrestrially adapted, they naturally would have developed terrestrial agility, including more efficient running, which is where Lieberman’s research has relevance.
I know it’s a little complicated and ‘unconventional’ if one comes from a traditional anthropological viewpoint, but at least to my mind the aquarboreal and littoral models are beautifully consistent with the available data, not at all extreme, and I’ve yet to see any substantial arguments that make them impossible, and certainly no alternatives that better explain the available data.
Hope this helps you understand our arguments a little better, but if not, we have published a number of papers that we can easily send you as PDFs if you’re interested. Just let us know.
Best regards.
Greg had a good point to clarify,
“is there a sort of AAT 1.0 pre 2.6mya followed by an AAT 2.0 after 2.6, or is this all mainly a streetlamp phenomenon?”
The answers seem to be partly addressed in Munro’s posts 308 and 317, but I would like to see the answer clarified.
#308:
“The aquarboreal model is relevant to the australopiths (as it is all hominoids) but the AAT (at least the way we see it, and we differ fundamentally from Elaine here) is about, ‘erectine grade’ hominins (such as Homo erectus),”
#317:
“Living in coastal forests, already adapted to feeding in flooded forests (aquarboreal model), our argument is that these populations gradually also learned to gather shellfish, at first perhaps by plucking them off mangrove roots as one would fruit from branches (small evolutionary step), but then also, over millions of years, also learning to forage underwater for them (as modern humans do today). Our argument is that, according to the fossil record, evidence of this transition is only apparent in the Pleistocene. But did some of these features evolve earlier and there is just no fossil record? It’s possible but difficult to know.”
Oops it just happened! Was afraid that question was lost in the previous posts.
#347
Chris
Simple dugouts seem unlikely for those ancients who were city builders. But, they would
probably have been useful for early man migrating using the long route (coasts). Coracles
are probably among the simplest and oldest “boats”. Versions of them are found from
north-western Europe to Vietnam and Tibet.
Sumerians are credited with invention of the wheel, the chariot and the sailboat
among other things.
Sail-boats were used for trade of goods in ancient Sumer some 5000 and more
years ago. There is as far as I recall, a mention of a sea voyage in a sail boat in
the Epic of Gilgamesh (written nearly 4000 years ago).
Boats are primarily about movement on water and trading so they probably pre-date
animal husbandry, farming and settlement.
Humans congregating in river valleys and on the coasts is as old as the
trade in goods.As old as civilisation.
If Homo erectus made it to Flores 840kya (again, based on tools, not fossils), it’s much older than civilization.
#352
Chris, I made no mention of possible early members, of genus Homo.
I was pointing out the most likely reason humans (Modern Man) have congregated on coasts and in major river valleys over recorded history
has to do with trade.
Then it still doesn’t make sense, that we don’t congregate further inland as well, on fertile plains in moderne day Russia, etc. At least in just as many numbers. Carrying goods across waterbodies og over land is equally challenging.
And you’re quick to ignore what seems to be an eon long affinity for riverbeds and coasts for both past and modern humans (at least since Homo erectus). That does have relevance when observing a similar affinity for riverbeds and coasts in the first complex civilizations.
Next dumb question:
Marv V. and his peers claims that Homo erectus had denser bones than Homo sapiens, Marc calling it pachyosteosclerosis. This they claim is a marker of He having been more aquatic than Hs, because adaptation towards denser bones is seen in aquatic mammals adapting from a terrestrial life towards an aquatic one.
Is this a valid claim? Did He have denser bones than Hs, AMH? I could use informed input from other than proponents and trolls.
Not a dumb question, but it is a dumb claim.
As was the claim that the H.erectus could not run as they had ‘dense’ bones, and as
a result were restricted to a slow shuffle or to crawling on the shore.
By the way, is he suggesting that the H.erectus dived feet first?
Weight and bone density, do not present a problem for elephants. They
can move pretty fast, when they have too.
I don’t think Marc means their bones were only denser in the legs. In such case, they probably dove like we do:
http://hornshire.com/aah/plunge.jpg
And … elephants are too argued as past semiaquatics, in their case all the way back to Moeritherium 37mya. Which has been suggested by anthropology unrelated to any human aquatic “nonsense.”
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2008/04/15/elephants-were-aquatic/
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/13/one-protein-shows-elephants-and-moles-had-aquatic-ancestors/
#357
As AMH can shallow dive, without being a bonehead. (unlike some Homo erectus,
whose fossils were found in China), as an argument for an “aquatic” contribution
to hominin evolution, Homo erectus having dense bones, is irrelevant.
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo/homo_2.htm
http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/2009/06/15/the-skull-crushing-hyenas-of-d/
Elephants they may have had an ‘aquatic’ ancestor of sorts, but on the other hand
whales and dolphins had terrestrial ancestors tens of millions years ago.
Nor does it change the fact that a large terrestrial animal with dense bones, such
as an African elephant, can move fast when it needs too.
But is it accurately put, the He had denser bones than AMH? That’s what I’m trying to confirm.
And I’m not suggesting that past semiaquatics, e.g. elephants, can’t run on land. Humans can sprint on land it we really have to. Compared to e.g. chimps, we’re just not very good at it.
That there should be past semiaquatic mammal families (other than Homo) around makes perfect sense. Large water bodies come and go during the geological calendar. Which makes it possible for animal families to develop aquatic traits for a number of 100ky’s, but then when those water bodies disappear again, these animals are forced to adapt to new conditions or go extinct. Even though they retain aquatic traits from this phase, for instance bathing behavior, furlessness and a big ass trunk.
http://www.featurepics.com/FI/Thumb300/20100128/African-Elephant-Bathing-1444826.jpg
Other than elephants and humans, rhinos, tapirs, suids and shrews are suspected past or even present semiaquatics to some extent. So in such case, we’re not alone in going in and out of water.
E.g. the Sahara is first wet, then dry, then wet, then dry, then wet, then dry during geological history, in the Sahara pump phenomenon. Which follows the same calendar as the ice ages. Large polar ice caps, wet and lush Sahara. Small polar ice caps (like today), dry and void Sahara. Which is why we find 10ky old human cave paintings in Southern Libya and Algeria of elephants, hippos, giraffes, antelopes etc. in the middle of a today dry desert. Maybe it’s in the Sahara, we need to dig for new hominins to further map out our family tree. Sahelanthropus was found in the Sahara region.
Again, there are reasons to consider elephants partial aquatics, and ditto for humans. AAH is not exactly based on nothing.
#359
The answer on denser bones would be yes, as apparently H.erectus, H.neanderthal
would have had denser leg bones. On the other hand, I am not entirely convinced
that the H.erectus in general, had skulls like those fossils found in China. As the
H. ergaster/erectus in Africa, had thinner skull, more like that of AMH.
Changes in hunting techniques, the use of fire, dietary changes, a more sedentary
lifestyle and the odd fortuitous mutation or two have probably all contributed over
the last 200,000 years to AMH being more gracile (lighter, slender and taller)
than earlier members of the genus.
Probably there are and have been semi-aquatic mammals (terrestrial mammals, that
feed on what grows in, and what lives in water) as down through time, as mammals
have exploited most of or all the niches in the last 65 Mya vacated by the dinosaurs
and their kin.
Humans being a 100% terrestrial show no indication of ever being semi-aquatic
mammal, but their ability to learn has enabled them to exploit most niches, when
it comes to filling their gut. Exploiting what is in shallow water is no big deal, once
you have learnt how to swim, shallow dive.
Think you will find that the Sahelanthropus, was found south of the Sahara, somewhere
in Chad. The valley of the Awash further to the east, has been a richer source of fossils.
The only foot the AAT has had so far on the plausible side of the line, was the
dietary argument, but even that falls at the first hurdle
Quote# 360: “Humans being a 100% terrestrial show no indication of ever being semi-aquatic mammal.”
Again, you might as well keep saying, that the Earth is the center of the universe. No indications???
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Skin.jpg
That’s your skin, human. You see what’s missing at the epidermis, that’s otherwise present in the vast majority of terrestrial mammal species? You see those yellow pebbles beneath the dermis? That’s our blubber. At the least, it is in no way unreasonable or unscientific to make that convergent observation about human skin based on two unequivocal features in all extant Homo sapiens; near-furlessness and skinfat. That was Hardy’s first observation in this aquatic debate, and the number of indications has only mounted ever since. Once one has made just that one observation on human skinfat, it’s impossible to go back to the obsolete idea, that the Earth is flat on this issue. It’s impossible to keep perceiving us as a purely terrestrial ape, that is what is unscientific. Why is it fine to discuss aquaticism in terrestrials like extant elephants, but so preposterous to do it about apes??? You’re responding to this scientific challenge with the same psychology of the Holy See towards Galileo!!!
Quote# 360: “The only foot the AAT has had so far on the plausible side of the line, was the dietary argument, but even that falls at the first hurdle.”
And again, friar William goes out the window. When it’s about ourselves, the scientific method doesn’t apply. We’re just too damned scared to discover the limitations of our existence. We don’t want to know, what we are. Otherwise, the aquatic ape hypothesis’d be considered a no brainer.
#361
What you are referring to is the hypodermis, what some inaccurately refer to as
the subcutaneous layer; it is not unique to humans by any means.
It functions as padding under the top layers of the skin, padding and insulation for
the internal organs, aids in the thermoregulation of the body core temperature.
Its main function, being fat, is an energy reserve. Other primates have a similar fat
layer that is directly comparable to that found in Humans. For example, sedentary
city dwelling humans can pile on the pounds (Kgs), as can macaques, gorillas
and orangutans kept in captivity or zoos.
The layer of blubber of aquatic mammals, is much thicker and has more blood
vessels than the fat found terrestrial mammals.
You’re talking about a completely different type of fat deposit in the other apes, visceral fat. The stuff that goes to the stomach and other large depots on our body, being a symptom of obesity, we share that with the other apes, yes. But that’s not the fat we have in our skin for insulation in lieu of fur. That subcutaneous type of fat deposit is unique to humans among the apes.
Fully aquatic mammals having much thicker blubber (or whatever our subcutaneous fat is) is only logical, because they are much more aquatic than humans are argued to be here. Cetaceans have been aquatic for well over 50my, human have a max of 7, perhaps only 2. We’re not dolphin apes in any scenario. A better comparison would be the fat layer in the skin of suids also argued to be semiaquatics, e.g. the bacon of the domesticated pig.
#363
Subcutaneous beneath the skin, visceral when surrounding the organs.
As said, like sedentary humans, in captivity, zoos the likes of gorillas and even
orangutans can pile on the pounds (Kgs) to the point where they can
become obese.
http://www.monkeyday.org/2010/09/obese-orangutan-oshine-latest-addition.html
#363
“…We’re not dolphin apes in any scenario. A better comparison would be the fat
layer in the skin of suids also argued to be semiaquatics, e.g. the bacon of the
domesticated pig…”
The domesticated pig, is another sedentary animal that can pile on the pounds.
Second, why bother with aquatic traits, if as you say they were not in the same league
as dolphins? All humans require to go foraging in water, is to learn how to swim, swim
efficiently and how to shallow dive. Monkeys can do it, without acquiring a whole
raft of aquatic traits.
Quote #364: “Subcutaneous beneath the skin, visceral when surrounding the organs. As said, like sedentary humans, in captivity, zoos the likes of gorillas and even orangutans can pile on the pounds (Kgs) to the point where they can become obese.”
You know, I encounter this quite often in this AAH debate. If oponents can’t reject one of your arguments, they just act as if you didn’t say it. To repeat myself, obese zoo apes pile onto their visceral fat, not subcutaneous fat. Because the other great apes don’t possess that kind of tissue, while humans do. Humans get obese in the exact same depots and those zoo apes. Zoo apes are kept warm by their fur, which is the mammalian standard, whereas we are kept warm by our skinfat.
Quote #364: “Second, why bother with aquatic traits, if as you say they were not in the same league as dolphins? All humans require to go foraging in water, is to learn how to swim, swim efficiently and how to shallow dive. Monkeys can do it, without acquiring a whole raft of aquatic traits.”
The question since Darwin is why we are kept warm by our skinfat, while missing most of the mammalian fur. Most suggestions out there are almost totally bereft of analogies from the rest of the tree of life and are contrived as hell. Why bother with aquatic traits? Because it’s supported by convergent evolution. And parsimony. And human ethology. It’s all the purely terrestrial suggestions, that are bizarre by comparison, for at least this series of key human traits that differ from the other apes, and indeed all simians.
Compare the diving ability of these two critters (and watch their bipedalism in water, eh?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5i1xhq0G2Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrXQbucZUDA
Who has the biggest aquatic potential of these two closely related apes?
#365
Quote #364: “Subcutaneous beneath the skin, visceral when surrounding the organs. As said, like sedentary humans, in captivity, zoos the likes of gorillas and even orangutans can pile on the pounds (Kgs) to the point where they can become obese.”
Quote # 365 “…Humans get obese in the exact same depots and those zoo apes. Zoo apes
are kept warm by their fur, which is the mammalian standard, whereas we are kept
warm by our skinfat…”
As insulation, the layer of fat beneath the skin in humans is inadequate for the task you
claim for it, it is both too thin and varies too much in thickness to offer insulation in water, for
anything other than our core body temperature for a brief period. Humans can lose
body heat up to twenty-four times faster, in water than in their natural habitat.
Quote #365 “Compare the diving ability of these two critters (and watch their
bipedalism in water, eh?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5i1xhq0G2Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrXQbucZUDA
Who has the biggest aquatic potential of these two closely related apes?..”
Neither, as this piece of research proved.
Science 2013
Evolution of Mammalian Diving Capacity Traced by Myoglobin Net Surface Charge
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6138/1234192
Also extrapolating from the fact that some humans have taught themselves to dive
to extreme levels proves nothing, other than humans have a remarkable ability to
learn and exploit what others have learnt down through the generations.
Moreover, it says nothing about homin evolution to say that because some like
crawling through deep caves, can master flying a single seat aircraft, or teach
themselves to dive to extreme depths in water that as a species humans, have
subterranean, avian or aquatic adaptations.
Quote #366: As insulation, the layer of fat beneath the skin in humans is inadequate for the task you claim for it, it is both too thin and varies too much in thickness to offer insulation in water, for anything other than our core body temperature for a brief period. Humans can lose body heat up to twenty-four times faster, in water than in their natural habitat.
Which is not a problem in the tropics, humanity’s original climate belt untill 100kya. There the insulation appears to be perfectly balanced in water, while we collapse from heat exhaustion on land. Where we’re fine diving like this:
http://vimeo.com/7953385
And flying around in the atmosphere is dependent on inventing a vehicle for this specific task. And we can’t crawl around in cold caves buck naked. In which type of habitat can we all make it without all that technology, even without clothes, if push comes to shove? Which type of habitat did both Columbus and Cook label with the extremely positive and philosophical word “paradise”? Thick jungles? Wide ranges of grasslands? Or tropical archipelagos? Where would you like to live, human?
It’s just an ethological observation into yourself, ape.
#367
“…Which is not a problem in the tropics, humanity’s original climate belt untill 100kya.
There the insulation appears to be perfectly balanced in water, while we collapse
from heat exhaustion on land. Where we’re fine diving like this:
http://vimeo.com/7953385
Seriously, a rote answer.
If you are going to use AAT rote answers, at least get yourself some new ones.
That one has been around since the time of the dinosaurs.
#367
“…And flying around in the atmosphere is dependent on inventing a vehicle for this
specific task. And we can’t crawl around in cold caves buck naked. In which type
of habitat can we all make it without all that technology, even without
clothes, if push comes to shove? …”
What has the invention of aircraft, got to do with what I wrote?
In addition, are you seriously suggesting that humans have never crawled buck naked
into near inaccessible caves, deep underground? What about those in the Palaeolithic
thousands of years ago, tens of thousands of years ago, who crawled into such deep
caves to leave paintings on the cave walls, remarkable paintings depicting the animals
they hunted.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18449711
Quote #368: “If you are going to use AAT rote answers, at least get yourself some new ones. That one has been around since the time of the dinosaurs.”
Those answers still apply. The opposition is not exactly refuting the core AAH arguments. Instead people act as if they haven’t been presented:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KnHGGT1usFU/UpeCMPJMVTI/AAAAAAAAGe0/mjn4xbMaFuw/s320/wise-monkeys.jpg
.
I’d like to think I achieved something here. But I probably didn’t.
If Eugène Dubois at the time hadn’t been anthropocentric (as everybody then thinking that human ancestors must have looked half human half ape), the littoral theory could have been clear from the beginning IMO: a platycephalic pachyosteosclerotic skull in deltaic sediments: what else could it be but a slow & shallow littoral (parttime) diver for sessile foods?
Time for a little update. it’s becoming clearer IMO: schematic hypothesis:
1) early-Pleistocene archaic Homo dispersed intercontinentally along coasts, deltas & coastal lagoons, eating shellfish (stone tools) & shallow aquatic & waterside plants on the continental shelves (glacials),
2) mid-Pleistocene Homo (less pachyosteosclerotic) ventured inland along rivers (reduced pachyosteosclerosis), eating a lot of plant food (traces of cattails, waterlily & graminea roots on neandertal tools & in dental calculus),
3) late-Pleistocene H.sapiens waded for shallow water & waterside foods incl. fish & fowl (isotopic data, loss of pachyosteosclerotic skull, very long legs, body & head held high, strong basi-cranial flexion, eyes directed downward, complex weapons etc.).
independent.academia.edu/marcverhaegen
For someone new to the debate, “articles” like this one look desperate. Dripping with sarcasm and obviously fueled by something other than purely scientific motives – you make people wonder. Like my Dad always said, “They always tell on themselves.”
New thing to incorporate: http://www.nature.com/news/science-gets-a-grip-on-wrinkly-fingers-1.12175
Wrinkly fingers don’t contradict the coastal dispersal model, on the contrary apparently: they might help swimming, and possibly feeling and/or grasping underwater for seafood. IMO it’s difficult to use wrinkly fingertips pro or against AAT.
http://www.discoveryuk.com/web/naked-and-marooned-with-ed-stafford/photos/naked-and-marooned-with-ed-stafford/
This is an interesting (TV) experiment on human survival capability. The choice of habitat for it is exactly what we’re talking about: A tropical island. That would indeed be a Homo sapiens’ best chance to survive on its own on this planet. No one would dare try a similar thing on the tropical savannah.
Yes, Chris, we can probably better survive on an island than on the savanna, but OTOH animals isolated on an island get rel.smaller brains (this makes the Danakil hypothesis unlikely).
All fossil & other evidence suggests that our early-Pleistocene broad-bodied, heavy-boned, flat-skulled, large-brained ancestors (archaic Homo) dispersed along Eurasian & African coasts, parttime diving for seafood. Biologically this is obvious – except for paleo-anthropologists who were indoctrinated at universities that our ancestors left the African forests for the African plains.
Cristobal, if you are so new to the debate, you probably don’t know what you are talking about. If you are faking that (which I suspect) then you should know better.
Marc, I wasn’t suggesting they do! Perhaps they help harvesting USO’s in marshes. That’s what I was thinking.
The open-plain ideas of human evolution are based on the traditional assumption (but logical error) that ape–>human = quadruped–>biped = forest–>savanna, but all objective data (paleo-environmental, fossil, physiological, nutritional…) show that Pleistocene archaic Homo did not run over the African plains (sweating water + salt = scarce in savannas), but followed the African & Eurasian coasts & rivers, in search of shallow aquatic & waterside foods. FYI, some recent publications:
-J.Joordens, S.Munro cs 2014 Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving, Nature doi 10.1038/nature13962
-S.Munro 2010 Molluscs as ecological indicators in palaeoanthropological contexts, PhD thesis Univ.Canberra
-J.Joordens cs 2009 Relevance of aquatic environments for hominins: a case study from Trinil (Java, Indonesia), J.hum.Evol.57:656-671
-S.Cunnane 2005 Survival of the fattest: the key to human brain evolution, World Scient.Publ.Comp.
-M.Vaneechoutte cs eds 2011 Was Man more aquatic in the past? eBook Bentham Sci.Publ.
-M.Verhaegen 2013 The aquatic ape evolves: common misconceptions and unproven assumptions about the so-called Aquatic Ape Hypothesis, Hum.Evol.28:237-266 google researchGate marc verhaegen, or independent academia edu/marcverhaegen.