Anthropology > Aquatic Ape Hypothesis

"In a 1942 book, the German pathologist Max Westenhöfer published the idea of humans evolving in proximity to water with the statement "The postulation of an aquatic mode of life during an early stage of human evolution is a tenable hypothesis, for which further inquiry may produce additional supporting evidence." In 1930 marine biologist Alister Hardy theorised that humans may have had ancestors more aquatic than previously imagined. Because it was outside his field and he was aware of the controversy it would cause, Hardy delayed reporting his theory. After he had become a respected academic, Hardy finally voiced his thoughts in a speech to the British Sub-Aqua Club in Brighton on 5 March 1960, not expecting any attention, but it was reported in a national newspaper. This generated immediate controversy in the field of paleoanthropology. Consequently Hardy published the theory in an article in New Scientist on 17 March 1960. He defined his idea: My thesis is that a branch of this primitive ape-stock was forced by competition from life in the trees to feed on the sea-shores and to hunt for food, shell fish, sea-urchins etc., in the shallow waters off the coast. I suppose that they were forced into the water just as we have seen happen in so many other groups of terrestrial animals. I am imagining this happening in the warmer parts of the world, in the tropical seas where Man could stand being in the water for relatively long periods, that is, several hours at a stretch. The idea received some interest after the article was published,[6] but was generally ignored by the scientific community thereafter. In 1967, the hypothesis was briefly mentioned in The Naked Ape, a book by Desmond Morris in which can be found the first use of the term "aquatic ape".[7] Writer Elaine Morgan read about the idea in Morris' book and was struck by its potential explanatory power, becoming its main promoter and publishing six books over the next 40 years.The context of initial presentations of the idea (a popular work and a political text) prevented the AAH from garnering serious interest or an exploration of its scientific merit. Despite maintaining some popular and scientific interest over several decades, the aquatic ape theory has not been accepted by a large majority of researchers within the field of paleoanthropology.A small but active number of promoters working outside of mainstream paleoanthropology, non-anthropologists and the occasional professional still cite and bring attention to the AAH but it has never been completely discredited to its adherents nor fully explored by researchers.