Re: Aquatic ape theory
Thomas Clarke (clarke@acme.ist.ucf.edu)
20 Oct 1995 19:00:55 GMT
In article <468c1o$lcm@scotsman.ed.ac.uk> jamesb@hgu.mrc.ac.uk writes:
> ronkanen@cc.Helsinki.FI (Osmo Ronkanen) wrote:
> >There is at something like 1-3 million year gap between the speculated
> >AA and wearing clothes. That time is enough either to get the hair
> >back or to lose it.
> What if homo erectus and neandarthals etc. swim a llot in fresh-water lakes
and rivers etc. ? I
> think we really need to sort out a more exact timing for the aquatic
phase.I'll bring in a
> reference for a paper that looks at what can be considered aquatic
modifications in hominoid
> skeletons to date this more accurately.
You guys are trying too hard. The calculations performed to support
the "savannah scenario" provide the answer. When travelling on the
savannah in the "noon day sun", it is apparently better to have little
hair. Thus once the hominid has lost his hair and has started to be
active in the day on the savannah, there is no selection pressure
to regrow the hair. If cold at night is a problem, it is within the
brain capacity of the early hominids to build a next of brush or whatever
materials are available.
My view is that after the hypothetical period when the proto-hominid
obtained a significant fraction of its calories from water, resulting
in bipdelism and loss of hair, the hominid took to the savannah/mosaic
environment where the standard scenarios provide more than enough detail
of subsequent events.
Alex Duncan has sent me a list of references (which our library had!)
and I will see if my version is consistent with what is known.
Tom Clarke
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