John Hawks in “
Why anthropologists don't accept the Aquatic Ape Theory,”:
1. "Hominids leading into the water sources available to them would have nothing to protect them from crocodiles and other large predators."
2. "Paleontologists have never found fossil evidence of this aquatic ape. "
3. "There may be gaps in the fossil record, but it is unlikely that those gaps will be filled by new primates and entirely different from any known form in their ecology."
1. Tamrin: "We can dispense with the first objection on the basis that, despite crocodiles and their ilk, there ARE aquatic and littoral animals (littoral being a better term for the hypothesised habits of our predecessors), of whom the same objection to their possibility obviously fails by virtue of their existence." :-)
2. Hawks is talking nonsense. Why does the man not inform a bit first? In fact, AFAWK, all archaic Homo fossils are found in associaiton with large quatities of edible shellfish, see the malacological (mollusc) work of Stephen Munro, google "econiche Homo".
3. Idem: nonsense: hasn't Hawks heard of lowland gorillas wading for sedges in forest swamps? or of Moken children (Sea Gypsies) diving for shellfish before they can walk?
There are only small gaps: our littoral phase didn't happen 6 Ma as Elaine thought, but probably less than c 2 Ma during the Pleistocene (Ice Ages): archaic Homo (erectus, modjokertensis etc.) are typically littoral animals such as pakicetids (early Cetacea): drastic brain enlargement, flat & long skull, flat femora, very heavy bones (much too heavy for running, but seen in slow & shallow diving mammals, google: pachyosteosclerosis), projecting nostrils, intercontinental dispersal etc. Pleistocene Homo is typically found amid edible shellfish (Munro 2010). IOW, we have all the fossil evidence, if people like Hawks weren't so prejudiced & anthropocentric.
It's clear IMO that we have to discern different "aquatic" hypotheses:
- Mio-Pliocene aquarboreal hominoids including australopiths living in swamp forest & wetlands,
- Pleistocene Homo dispersing along coasts & later rivers, collecting waterside & shallow water foods, partly through diving = AAT s.s.
- late-Pleistocene H.sapiens, wading (probably mostly in freswater) & fishing with spears etc.
Human Evolution is publishing the proceedings of the symposium on human waterside evolution "Human Evolution: Past, Present & Future" (London 8-10 May 2013, with David Attenborough & Don Johanson):
Special Edition Part 1 (end 2013)
- Peter Rhys-Evans: Introduction
- Stephen 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
- Stephen Munro: Endurance Running versus Underwater Foraging: an Anatomical and Palaeoecological Perspective
- Algis Kuliukas: Wading Hypotheses of the Origin of Human Bipedalism
- Marc Verhaegen: The Aquatic Ape Evolves: Common Misconceptions and Unproven Assumptions about the So-Called Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
- CL Broadhurst & Michael Crawford: The Epigenetic Emergence of Culture at the Coastline: Interaction of Genes, Nutrition, Environment and Demography
Special Edition Part 2 (begin 2014)
- 12 contributions
Please google
- econiche Homo
- aquarboreal
- misconceptions Verhaegen
- pachyosteosclerosis
- Rhys Evans Vaneechoutte
marc verhaegen
tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT
_____
Moreover, with some reservation,
we are elsewhere told:
Beyond such hints, Marc Verhaegen,* a paleontologist at the
Center for Anthropology, in Putte, Belgium, spoke of "Aquatic Features in Fossil Hominids?", at a 1987 symposium in the Netherlands, at which the pros and cons of AAH were debated.
*Perhaps this Marc Verhaegen is our newest member, of the same name. If so, we look forward to his input.