[email protected] wrote:
2013 Hum.Evol.28:237-266: The nowadays popular ideas about Pleistocene human ancestors running
in open plains (‘endurance running’, ‘dogged pursuit of swifter animals’, ‘born to run’, ‘le singe coureur’,
‘Savannahstan’) are among the worst scientific hypotheses ever proposed.
I agree. Besides expelling the absolute maximum effort for the smallest return, it leaves no
path to a larger brain or advancement in tools. Even a spear would be useless to them. They
wouldn't be throwing anything. The animal has literally dropped from exhaustion. Hit it on the
head with a rock. Club it with a branch. Cut it with anything that has a sharp edge.
It's just plain stupid.
The susprising frequency & diversity of foot problems (hammer-toes, hallux valgus & bunions, ingrown
nails, heel-spurs, athlete’s feet, corns & calluses—some of these due to wearing shoes) & the need to
protect our feet with shoes prove that human feet are not made in the first place for running.
This is very true. Our feet are extremely vulnerable. We're applying a lot of force with them, expose them
to a lot of potential threats, and any wound, even one that seems superficial, is a candidate for infection.
so even if they "Toughen up" with use, it's just a matter of a very short time before they receive cuts and
bites...
Humans are physiologically ill-adapted to dry open milieus: “We have a water- & sodium-wasting cooling
system of abundant sweat glands, unfit for a dry environment. Our maximal urine concentration is too
low for a savanna-dwelling mammal.
Humans do seem to adapt to some extant. Africans don't all have the need and hence tolerance for sodium
that other populations display. Either they've adapted to retain it better or adapted so as not to require as
much. But they still need the water & salt, so it's not THAT large a difference.
We need more water than other primates, and have to drink more often than savanna inhabitants, yet we
cannot drink large quantities at a time” (1987 Nature 325:305-6 ).
I've proposed several times that the "Liquor" inside of shellfish (the fluid or water) was probably all they
needed. It has less salt than see water and of course it's nearly all water anyway. They may never have
needed to find fresh water sources -- the Aquatic Age -- or many fewer than inland populations.
This would also probably have put pressure on them to adapt to a higher salt diet. Sweating would not
just be a means of keeping cool but relieving the body of excess salt.
We just need you more brilliant academic types to work this stuff out. I mean, don't any of you want to
write another paper? Sheesh!
This does not imply to say that human ancestors or relatives never lived on savannas, only that if they
did, it was at the wetlands & rivers there.
Okay, see, this is where I disagree with you.
Our ancestors were living waterside. They were on the sea shore. They were. We all know this and we
all agree with this, even the "Out of Africa" purists: "Coastal Dispersal."
But, our ancestors were also living inland. We find them inland. We have their tools and the remains
of their hunts and sometimes we even find them, their bones. So...
There were multiple populations of humans. Period. The one and only one that all humans can trace
ancestry to is the Aquatic/Waterside/Littoral population. But there were other populations, I want to
say MANY other populations, and everybody alive can trace their ancestry back to them... we just
can't all trace ourselves back to the same one(s).
There were populations living inland, hunting game, foraging for fruit and or nuts and or berries or
anything else they could eat. But they're not common to everyone. There's no reason why they even
have too have ANY living descendants today, though undoubtedly some of them do. But ALL OF US
have Aquatic Ape/Waterside/Littoral ancestors. We all have to.
Littoral ancestors: A necessity.
Inland ancestors: Not a necessity and whatever specific populations we may trace our ancestry to
would not be common to everybody.
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