Did Humans Evolve in the Oceans at Some Point?
We human beings have some strange characteristics which set us aside from the other primates:
- We no longer have fur although we still have as many hairs as a chimpanzee.
- Our hair is fine and lays in a streamlined pattern in the water.
- We have a layer of fat under our skin like a seal whereas no other primate has this adaptation.
- We have webbed feet and hands.
- Infant human beings will instinctively hold their breath under water.
- Human beings cry salt tears unlike any other primate. Salt is a rare and precious thing in the wild and salt tears would be wasteful.
- We sweat to cool our bodies. This uses a lot of water. If we evolved on the parched savannas of Africa why evolve such wasteful manner of cooling ourselves?
- The human larynx has descended into the throat like a sea lion and other aquatic mammals. This allows deep breaths and a longer period of breath holding.
(via samsaranmusing:)
Humans are curious creatures, are they not?
So, this is a real scientific theory, but the merperson picture and the way they’ve worded it here is a bit misleading.
First of all, it’s called the Aquatic Ape Theory. It’s legit. All of these points are used to prove it.
But it is NOT a theory that we evolved in the ocean. That is not a theory that exists (to my knowledge). In the Aquatic Ape Theory, it’s theorized that humans evolved in a marshy or lake-like climate, specifically in an area called the Afar Triangle, where we still had some access to land (or we’d drown), but were forced to live in the water at least part of the time due to geography.
There’s lots of good books on the subject, and a bit more evidence for it than most of the other theories (or there was when I was a kid). But it has nothing to do with actual oceans.
