Quote:
Originally Posted by naiad
Thanks for the explanation. 
It seems most likely that early humans foraged for food in warm, clear and shallow water. |
Yep. Seawater, based on the evolutionarily recent reduction of eccrine sweat (salt) skin glands in humans, gorillas and chimps and partial lobulation of some human fetal kidneys. Freshwaters inland were probably hazardous due to large predators and waterborne parasites, which is why apes usually stick to the trees and only wade occasionally.
I figure they typically resided at pocket beaches fronted by reefs and backed by cliffs with rock overhangs and seeping springs, with a few palms, mangroves and figs, etc. They may have traveled inland at times hunting and gathering foods, flint, obsidian, ochre perhaps a hundred miles for periods, but I don't think they regularly lived inland due to big cats, until weapons and fire were well controlled, and dugouts allowed scent-free non-disruptive transit.
The depths dove probably depended on the shore structure, 0 - 10 meters no doubt, deeper than that remains unknown but if there was rich foods in deeper reefs it would have attracted deeper dives. Sea otter adult males and walruses dive to 100 meters, so I view that as the theoretical maximum.
DDeden
