I first read about the “aquatic ape” idea in the book “The Naked Ape“, written by Desmond Morris and first published in 1967. At the begiining of the book, Morris lists all kinds of evidence that points to an aquatic background – everything from our smooth skin to the natural direction of our remaining hair follicles to the distribution of fat and so on.

Here is an updated look at these ideas as presented at TED by Elaine Morgan:

If you would like to see the other side of the coin, this site is helpful:

Aquatic Ape Theory: sink or swim?

There are a number of claims made by AAT/H proponents, and tracking down the source material which supposedly supports these claims is not always easy. In a dramatic departure from the way science is supposed to work, references for specific AAT/H claims are not always available; many times the author(s) involved simply make a claim without any reference to a source of evidence for the claim. For instance, during the period I put together most of the evidence for this site, chief AAT/H theorizer Elaine Morgan was posting regularly in the sci.anthropology.paleo newsgroup, and claimed to be willing to supply references for her written AAT/H claims, but she proved to be reluctant to provide these references to people who have a past history of actually reading the source and reporting back what it really says. Others — who didn’t engage in this sort of “anti-social” behavior — reported they have no problem getting references from Morgan.

Nevertheless, a number of the claims made by Elaine Morgan and other AAT/H proponents have been tracked down and examined. The results are not encouraging. Quite frankly, when I first read the work done on the AAT/H, I saw some big holes in the reasoning, but I did think that the evidence which was (sometimes) given was probably accurately and fully reported. When I started looking these things up, however, I found that I was wrong on that count — the AAT/H has proven to be a hotbed of those “false facts” Darwin referred to.

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