SCIENCE

A New Aquatic Ape Theory

Erin Wayman

April 16, 2012

A gorilla in the Congo wading in a swamp

Image courtesy of Wikicommons

The aquatic ape theory, now largely dismissed, tries to explain the origins of many
of humankind’s unique traits. Popularized in the 1970s and 1980s by writer Elaine
Morgan, the theory suggests that early hominids lived in water at least part of the
time. This aquatic lifestyle supposedly accounts for our hairless bodies, which
made us more streamlined for swimming and diving; our upright, two-legged
walking, which made wading easier; and our layers of subcutaneous fat, which
made us better insulated in water (think whale blubber). The theory even links an
aquatic existence to the evolution of human speech.

The hypothesis was met with so much criticism that it’s not even mentioned in
human evolution textbooks. But that doesn’t mean aquatic habitats didn’t play
some kind of role in our ancestors’ lives.

In 2009, Richard Wrangham of Harvard University and colleagues suggested in the

American Journal of Physical Anthropology (PDF) that shallow aquatic habitats
allowed hominids to thrive in savannas, enabling our ancestors to move from
tropical forests to open grasslands.

About 2.5 million to 1.4 million years ago, when the genus Homo emerged, Africa
became drier. During certain seasons, already dry savannas became even more
arid, making it difficult for hominids to find adequate food. But Wrangham’s team
argues that even in this inhospitable environment there were oases: wetlands and
lake shores. In these aquatic habitats, water lilies, cattails, herbs and other plants
would have had edible, nutritious underground parts—roots and tubers—that
would have been available year-round. These “fallback” foods would have gotten
hominids through the lean times.

The researchers based their arguments on modern primate behavior. For

example, baboons in Botswana’s Okavango Delta, which floods every summer,
start eating a lot of water lily roots when fruit becomes scarce. And hunter-
gatherers in parts of Africa and Australia also eat a lot of roots and tubers from
aquatic plants.

The fossil record also hints at the importance of aquatic environments. Wrangham
and his team looked at nearly 20 hominid fossil sites in East and South Africa. In
East Africa, the geologic and fossil evidence suggests that hominids were living in
areas with lakes or flooded grasslands. South African sites tended to be drier but
were still located near streams.
The researchers say foraging in these environments may have led to habitual
upright walking. Today, chimpanzees and gorillas occasionally venture into shallow
bodies of water, and when they do, they wade on two legs. It makes sense. Wading
bipedally allows the apes to keep their heads above water. As our earliest
ancestors spent longer and longer periods of time wading upright, it became
beneficial to evolve specialized anatomy for two-legged walking.

Wrangham and his colleagues acknowledge that their case rests on circumstantial
evidence. There’s no direct proof that this is how hominids were living. And the
evidence has alternative explanations. For instance, watery habitats allow for
better fossil preservation, so finding hominids in watery locales may not be
representative of where they actually spent most of their time.

So like most things in human evolution, the debate’s wide open. What role do you
think wetlands and lake shores played in our ancestors’ lives?

Erin Wayman

Erin Wayman is a science and human evolution blogger for Hominid Hunting. She has M.As in
biological anthropology and science writing.

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