| |
|
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/interview/story/0,12982,946539,00.html
The aquatic theory of human evolution was first advanced by marine biologist Professor Sir Alister Hardy in New Scientist in 1960. He posited what may have happened during the Pliocene epoch, which lasted about five million years and for which no fossil information exists - the "fossil gap". In an emerging African continent scorched by drought, our ancestors entered the Pliocene as hairy quadrapeds with no language and left it hairless, upright and discussing what kinds of bananas they liked best. What happened in between? Hardy came up with a startling suggestion.
It was generally accepted that apes evolved into humans when they were forced because of climate changes to descend from the withering trees to live on the arid savannah. Hardy thought instead that our ancestors' physiology changed dramatically when a population of woodland apes became isolated on a large island around what is now Ethiopia. Although the waters eventually receded and the apes returned to land, their aquatic adaptions remained. This temporary semi-aquatic existence would explain why humans - genetically so close to the chimpanzee and gorilla - grew to differ from them in so many ways.
Human beings are the only naked bipeds. We carry a layer of subcutaneous fat substantially thicker than in any other primate. We exude, through our eyes and sweat glands, greater quantities of salt water than any other mammal. We are the only species of mammal to mate face to face, other than aquatic mammals. We are the only primate capable of overriding our unconscious breathing rhythms, alongside the elaborate use of lips and tongue, to produce speech ability which separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We are also the only primate with a descended larynx, thought to increase the variety of sounds we can produce.
Hardy argued that these features indicate a level of adaption to an aquatic environment. Thus, humans become bipedal to wade in water, and lost their hair to streamline their bodies for swimming. The fat layer kept them warm and buoyant, their secretions prevented build-up of excess salt from sea water and their larynx was protected against submersion. Language evolved because glare from the water meant signalling was no longer an efficient means of communication.
So maybe Lovecraft was right about the Deep Ones?
And maybe this fits in with that city found near the coast of Cuba. |
|
|
living in the shallows and splashing about. Don't know about you but I love splashing about in the sea, maybe it's ancestral memory.. 
