Aquatic Ape Theory History

Prior to 546 B.C., the Milesian philosopher Anaximander proposed that mankind had sprung from an aquatic species of animal. He thought that the extended infancy of humans could not have originally permitted survival as a land-based species. This idea, based on elemental forces of mutation as opposed to evolution, does not appear to have survived Anaximander's death.

The modern hypothesis was originally suggested in 1942, by Max Westenhofer in The Road to Man (Der Eigenweg des Menschen). It became more well-known in 1960 when proposed in academic circles by the marine biologist Sir Alister Hardy. Hardy had had the idea privately since about 1930, independently of Westenhofer. The early television playwright and later feminist writer Elaine Morgan developed and promoted it, publishing in 1972 her first book on the subject, The Descent of Woman, and later other books, including The Aquatic Ape (1982), The Scars of Evolution (1990), The Descent of the Child (1994), and The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (1997).