Discussion on hypothesized ancestral human cyclical ARC dive-foraging

[TimoP]

I and my children have had much opportunities to be and swim in lakes and swimmingpools, both are very common here, just a few minutes to go to a lake or hall. And still I and my children were able to swim effectively enough (to survive in real situation) at about 7-8 years old, like almost everybody else here. Here are swimming schools for every single kid, even many times at 5-8 years old. And ofcourse those baby swimmings, but they are not compolsory.

And because here in our country there are about 100.000 lakes (not small included) and many big rivers and people want spend their times there near by the water, like in cottages etc., drownings are a big problem here. I mean here, TOO. It hasn't help that almost everybody is used to be near water. I have done a professional live saver course, and I think this is a serious issue. Not like that: "(All) Human babies are able to swim, that's it!".
.

 

[wet]

How many tropical lagoons with calm clear dense warm saltwater in Finland?

I've been talking about diving-backfloating at tropical lagoons 1ma. The technological adaptation to boats and nets changed the social culture, so that dive foraging and backfloating became much less frequent and significant, especially far away from these tropical lagoons.

Most mammal & bird young learn how to behave from parents, to walk, swim, fly etc. Humans learn to swim; chimps, gorillas, orangutans, gibbons don't.

 

[Arjen]

I've been talking about diving-backfloating at tropical lagoons 1ma.

Please give evidence for this claim. Same with the rest of the claims you have made in the last few posts. You are making bald assertions again without any reference to scientific studies and publications.:rcard

 

[wet]

Stephan et al, thanks for including an ignore list at DB. I tried to avoid using it for years, but once in a while, it is necessary, in order to let common sense prevail.

 

[Arjen]

Stephan et al, thanks for including an ignore list at DB. I tried to avoid using it for years, but once in a while, it is necessary, in order to let common sense prevail.

I know, it is so annoying when people demand reasonable evidence when you make bold claims. It is so hard to sell snake oil in such cases. And generally irritating that people do not just believe any statement that you assert with conviction.

I also have noticed that you still only post on this forum. Please go back to the AAT yahoogroup or even better, start posting here: Evolution and Natural Selection. They really like new squeeky toys. I think I can safely say that nobody here takes you very seriously. I have had some fun with you, but you are getting boring. You keep on repeating the same old diatribe over and over again. Stuff that has been refuted or debunked over and over and over again. And when we ask for something very simple, so we can actually start a debate on the merits of your assertion, that simple thing called "evidence", you react as it is a personal attack. It is not, I have respect for you as a person. The least I can say is you are very tenacious. But I do not necessarily have respect for ideas. And I will not be civil in a debate when simple questions are not answered or when you do not change your opinion when you have been demonstrated to be completely wrong.

 

[wet]

Blue shift in human ancestor color vision selected in dive foraging?
CHAN, Wang-Chak Azul, China, via Morgan, AAT forum

"Here I propose that in human color vision, several existing findings, which otherwise remain unexplained or explanation unsettled, could be discussed in the light of AAH. The arguments include: (1) Blue shift of human retinal S-cone photopigment analogous to aquatic mammals, (2) Human color blindness analogous to S-cone loss in aquatic mammals, and (3) Lack of green-blue or yellow-red color distinction in many languages. Finally, I will summarize them as a new model of human aquatic color vision (HACV), suggesting that the evolution of human color vision was profoundly influenced by a water-related habitat, leaving unmistakable traces in our physiology, cognition and culture.

Human S-cone pigment blue shift

As an adaptation to the underwater environment, aquatic mammals often have the light sensitivity of their cone/rod pigments shifted to the blue side of the color spectrum, comparing to terrestrial mammals (e.g. cows). Dolphins and whales have L-cone and rod pigments blue-shifted (Fasick et al. 1998), and manatees have S-cone pigment blue-shifted (Newman & Robinson 2005). Curiously, humans also have S-cone pigment blue-shifted comparing to our closest relatives - chimpanzees and other old world primates (Fasick et al. 1999, Jacobs et al. 1996, Jacobs 2008). However, no adequate explanation is given in the literature."

Yahoo! Groups

 

[TimoP]

I tend to see MUCH better on land than underwater. I mean without goggles or a mask, I think AAs didn't had those?

Maybe I should go to a ophthalmologist, hopefully he can do something, he absolutely must know about these things... It would be so useful to see underwater, not only haze.

---
Edit:
I found an interesting and maybe an useful fact of science (not from AAH-stories):

Normally a human needs 20 minutes to adapt to see in dark. But you can avoid that time, if you use red glasses 20 minutes before going to dark circumstances. You can be in normal light and see normally that waiting time, a little red ofcourse. This is used by some professionals need to see also in dark and not having time to wait 20 minutes for that adaptation.
Source: William F. Ganong: Review of medical physiology

BTW
If you (or AA) think to dive into the dark water, it should be much quicker adaptation, about 2-20 sec. It's hard to wait 20 min underwater in dark water for dark adaptation.

 

[wet]

John Hawks on endurance running: Running commentary | john hawks weblog
[Note sufficient hydration, salt replenishment and correct humidity are critical for human endurance running.]
-

IMO most likely endurance running ability in humans occurred as a result of tidal seashore roughwater beachcombing alternated with selection for more efficient respiration in water associated with dive-foraging, seasonal migrations from/to seacoasts <-> inland and reinforcement of habitual upright posture.

IOW at calm tropical lagoons, dive/backfloat foraging was typical; while at rough seas (surf zone, cold surface water, river currents) beachcombing, shallow wading and shore jogging were typical but diving was avoided.
-

On a slightly different note, a paper by A. Kuliukas et al on bipedal efficiency has come out:
ScienceDirect - HOMO - Journal of Comparative Human Biology : The relative cost of bent-hip bent-knee walking is reduced in water

"The debate about how early hominids walked may be characterised as two competing hypotheses: They moved with a fully upright (FU) gait, like modern humans, or with a bent-hip, bent-knee (BK) gait, like apes..."

 

[wet]

I tend to see MUCH better on land than underwater. I mean without goggles or a mask, I think AAs didn't had those?

Maybe I should go to a ophthalmologist, hopefully he can do something, he absolutely must know about these things... It would be so useful to see underwater, not only haze.

This might be of interest to you:
Yahoo! Groups

"A research team studying one sea-gypsy tribe has now found that its children have better-than-normal underwater vision because their eyes adapt to the liquid environment."

 

[Fondueset]

Children's eyes are much more capable of adjusting to all sorts of visual conditions. When I was a kid I could see quite well underwater. I would often take marine life identification books with me under there - in order to read about the various animals I encountered as I observed them. I spent so much time under water that parts of my epidermis began to become transparent - enabling colonies of symbiotic algae to live there and provide nutrients and oxygen. I no longer measured my bottoms times. Gradually I became alienated from my land-based peers. In gym class they would ridicule my delicate, greenish-tinged skin and mock my aquatic expertise, of which they were envious. I sought council from the Carp people, who, along with the Coelacanth, are said to dream the world. They counseled that i must renounce their world, keeping it forever in my heart; but walking among men as one of them. They said the time had not yet come for my species, and that I must let go my aquatic adaptations, which, they said, would magically revisit me when the time came for me to leave this world.

And so it is that I now sit here, working on a computer, and, when I am able - enjoying a distant shadow of my former abilities by freediving - an activity so evocative of, yet abstracted from my early life beneath the waves as to evoke a nearly unbearable poignancy...

 

[TimoP]

And about that blue shift adaption to underwater life, not again quite reliable from AAH people....

My citations (verbatim) from Cone visual pigments of aquatic mammals, LUCY A. NEWMAN and PHYLLIS R. ROBINSON, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland—Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland
:
"This study examines the cone opsins of marine mammals, hypothesizing, based on previous studies [Fasick et al. (1998) and Levenson & Dizon (2003)], that the deep-dwelling marine mammals would not have color vision because the pressure to maintain color vision in the dark monochromatic ocean environment has been relaxed."
...
"Taken together, these findings support the hypothesis that in the monochromatic oceanic habitat, the pressure to maintain color vision has been relaxed..."
...
"The deeper dwelling Cetacean species had blue shifted values compared to shallower-dwelling aquatic species."

----

Great, I'm glad our color vision haven't relaxed in ocean enviroment, altough on ground of blue shifting we should be a deeper dwelling species! But I'm a little worried about Herbert, do anybody know has he color vision or is it just black and white like the deeper dwellers used to have?

But i would like to see underwater like dolphins (but want to see blue and other colors too!):

"Dolphins may not be able to see blue, but, unlike humans they can see very well even in murky water, because a dolphin's eye has 7,000 times as many rod cells as a human eye.". (I'm not sure about this 7000x, I did't found original scientific source).
And more realible:
"1. Dolphins have acute vision both in and out of the water. A dolphin's eye is particularly adapted for seeing in water.

2. In air, certain features of the lens and cornea correct for the refraction of light caused by the transition from aquatic to aerial vision. Without this adaptation, a dolphin would be nearsighted in air (van der Pol, Worst, and van Andel, 1995).

3. The retinas of odontocetes have two central areas that receive images (human eyes have only one) (van der Pol, Worst, and van Andel, 1995). Due to this feature of the retina, bottlenose dolphins have binocular vision in air, and may have both binocular and monocular vision under water (Mass and Supin, 1995).

4. A dolphin's retinas contain both rod cells and cone cells, indicating that they may have the ability to see in both dim and bright light. (Rod cells respond to lower light levels than cone cells do.) (Ridgway, 1990) The presence of cone cells suggests that dolphins may be able to see color, although studies on bottlenose dolphins haven't documented color vision.

5. Dolphins' eyes have a well-developed tapetum lacidum, a light-reflecting layer that reflects light through the retina a second time, giving them enhanced vision in dim light."

So really something else than a human eye. We are mammals, both.
-------------

I have checked just a few of AAH claims with citation (now about adaptation to see underwater like "other" aquatic mammals). There have been every time something wrong or misleading. So I think this is enough for me, no need to check more of this kind of AAH-stories.

But I want to give my boosting input to AAH/T, so I put there some more Facts, you can use.
I think you haven't notice this before:

As you see, it's SO obvious that the space shuttle designers (they are humans aren't they?) have Aquatic Ape roots,:

, check it from here:
http://forums.deeperblue.com/freedi...cyclical-arc-dive-foraging-20.html#post787464

 

[TimoP]

And - finally - here they go, AAs (or Aquatic Stonemen?) using only rocks (ofcourse!): :martial
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-slOVkejkT0"]YouTube - The Original Rock Running[/ame]

That's not my video. Honour to him/her who finally videotaped them.
Seems to be good that stone running method
Really hot stuff for AAH/T-people roflrofl
this is something they have dreamed about.

But a real warning if you think to try this.
A very, very good chance to get a black out without warning (we really are NOT that adapted to underwater life). If not BO on the bottom already, then there is a danger of shallow water BO. Both are fatal if somebody is not helping you out there from the water. It is more difficult to rescue if BO happens on the bottom compared to "more typical" surface BO.

 

[wet]

Note: no mention of hominoid relatives, only full-time aquatics.
Human ancestors were part-time slow-dive sessile-benthic foragers, dolphins are full-time fast-dive chase-pelagic predators, Congo gorillas are part-time sessile-floating AHV foragers, not so much niche overlap I guess.
Compared to hominoid kin, all human diving is deep-diving, since no other hominoid submerses their faces to forage. Its all relative.
-

And about that blue shift adaption to underwater life, not again quite reliable from AAH people....

My citations (verbatim) from Cone visual pigments of aquatic mammals, LUCY A. NEWMAN and PHYLLIS R. ROBINSON, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland—Baltimore County, Baltimore, Maryland
:
"This study examines the cone opsins of marine mammals, hypothesizing, based on previous studies [Fasick et al. (1998) and Levenson & Dizon (2003)], that the deep-dwelling marine mammals would not have color vision because the pressure to maintain color vision in the dark monochromatic ocean environment has been relaxed."
...
"Taken together, these findings support the hypothesis that in the monochromatic oceanic habitat, the pressure to maintain color vision has been relaxed..."
...

yes, sounds about right.

"The deeper dwelling Cetacean species had blue shifted values compared to shallower-dwelling aquatic species."

yes, compare deep-diving human to shallow-AHV float-foraging gorillas, same effect apparently, per ref.

----

Great, I'm glad our color vision haven't relaxed in ocean enviroment, altough on ground of blue shifting we should be a deeper dwelling species!

compared to other hominoids, we are/were.

But I'm a little worried about Herbert, do anybody know has he color vision or is it just black and white like the deeper dwellers used to have?

But i would like to see underwater like dolphins (but want to see blue and other colors too!):

"Dolphins may not be able to see blue, but, unlike humans they can see very well even in murky water, because a dolphin's eye has 7,000 times as many rod cells as a human eye."

not surprising, seals see better in the dark than cats, per one ref. Dolphins hunt at night, something ancestral human dive foragers never did.

. (I'm not sure about this 7000x, I did't found original scientific source).
And more realible:
"1. Dolphins have acute vision both in and out of the water. A dolphin's eye is particularly adapted for seeing in water.

2. In air, certain features of the lens and cornea correct for the refraction of light caused by the transition from aquatic to aerial vision. Without this adaptation, a dolphin would be nearsighted in air (van der Pol, Worst, and van Andel, 1995).

Targeting flying fish, leaping salmon would select for better air vision in pelagic dolphins.

3. The retinas of odontocetes have two central areas that receive images (human eyes have only one) (van der Pol, Worst, and van Andel, 1995). Due to this feature of the retina, bottlenose dolphins have binocular vision in air, and may have both binocular and monocular vision under water (Mass and Supin, 1995).

yes, not surprising that dolphins would develop fish-chasing specializations, they've had 40,000,000+ years of air-breathing pelagic evolution in the seas.

4. A dolphin's retinas contain both rod cells and cone cells, indicating that they may have the ability to see in both dim and bright light. (Rod cells respond to lower light levels than cone cells do.) (Ridgway, 1990) The presence of cone cells suggests that dolphins may be able to see color, although studies on bottlenose dolphins haven't documented color vision.

5. Dolphins' eyes have a well-developed tapetum lacidum, a light-reflecting layer that reflects light through the retina a second time, giving them enhanced vision in dim light."

So really something else than a human eye. We are mammals, both.
-------------

I have checked just a few of AAH claims with citation (now about adaptation to see underwater like "other" aquatic mammals).

like? Only to a certain degree, humans are hominoids, better to compare humans to other hominoids first, I'd say. Humans have larger eyes and brains than gorillas, despite being smaller framed. No hominoids have tapeta lucidum.

There have been every time something wrong or misleading. So I think this is enough for me, no need to check more of this kind of AAH-stories.

I don't know why you would expect humans to have dolphin eyes, humans are hominoids like gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees, but with unique adaptations for dive foraging of benthic sessile foods at tropical seashore lagoon.

But I want to give my boosting input to AAH/T, so I put there some more Facts, you can use.
I think you haven't notice this before:
, check it from here:
http://forums.deeperblue.com/freedi...cyclical-arc-dive-foraging-20.html#post787464

Yes, Finland has no tropical lagoons that I'm aware of.

 

[wet]

And - finally - here they go

Another form of apnea competition. I agree, seems a bit risky.

 

[wet]

Children's eyes are much more capable of adjusting to all sorts of visual conditions. When I was a kid I could see quite well underwater. I would often take marine life identification books with me under there - in order to read about the various animals I encountered as I observed them. I spent so much time under water that parts of my epidermis began to become transparent - enabling colonies of symbiotic algae to live there and provide nutrients and oxygen. I no longer measured my bottoms times. Gradually I became alienated from my land-based peers. In gym class they would ridicule my delicate, greenish-tinged skin and mock my aquatic expertise, of which they were envious. I sought council from the Carp people, who, along with the Coelacanth, are said to dream the world. They counseled that i must renounce their world, keeping it forever in my heart; but walking among men as one of them. They said the time had not yet come for my species, and that I must let go my aquatic adaptations, which, they said, would magically revisit me when the time came for me to leave this world.

And so it is that I now sit here, working on a computer, and, when I am able - enjoying a distant shadow of my former abilities by freediving - an activity so evocative of, yet abstracted from my early life beneath the waves as to evoke a nearly unbearable poignancy...

Sounds like you are in touch with your inner fish.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9h1tR42QYA]YouTube - Tiktaalik (Your Inner Fish)[/ame]

 

[TimoP]

Wet, you pick the facts or claims, which suit you and ignore those that don't suit you. That's really not science. By that way you can prove almost anything, because world is full of facts, so there is really much where to choose (just ignore what doesn't suit). And mix there a good part of imagination, fantasy and speculation. So it's like magic, you can show things to be just want you want them to be, different that they really are.

Just an extreme example how to do that:

wet_Yes, Finland has no tropical lagoons that I'm aware of.

Are you sure?
Just look at this video, and you see that too hot lake water is our main problem on a special season (but no worry, in other seasons it's just tropical.

As you can see on the next video:
- the lake water is so hot, that it steams into the air
- swimmers can be in water just a short time, cos water it's so hot (it's so obvious and ofcourse you understand it, but I say it anyway)
- when they come out from water, the hot water steams on their skin
- they must rest outside the get rid of that extra heat, they can't go inside straight away
- ofcourse they use thin swimming suits so extra heat can exit as fast as possible
- they must use special 'cool suit' which they take from deep freezer just before they are going to the hot lake, they put it back after swimming to get quick cooling and so to avoid skin burns. Some use a cooling cap, too. And ofcourse cooling socks and gloves.
- it's too hot water for kids, as you see there are just adult people having better adaptation to the hot water
There are so much more facts, but I think this is enough, and you are convinced.
All this you can check from this video:

Are you asking what's that white stuff there around?
Just ignore it! It's nothing important. I think it's somekind of lime that comes out of lakes on that season. Ofcourse it's because of that hot water, it somehow rises form lake with that hot steam and float on the surface and spread even to near forests. But when it's again tropical, it just dissappears. So it's not a problem.

So quite tropical here, but sometimes too hot for swimming.
I can tell you so much more about that hot water, if you are interested or even if you are not.
-----
But to get the whole true picture: I mainly train freediving in 27-32 C/ 80-90 F water though (and that's a real fact!), our nearest swimminghall is just 1 km from us and there are 6 swimminghalls more (open for everybody) inside 20 min driving time, (that's a real fact). But on every "that special season" I go to those hot steamy waters too (I mean i go there into a hole in that white stuff, that's a real fact ,too).

And if there is sometimes too chilly..., we have hot sauna's there at lakes, a lot of them (that's a real fact). So kids can swim for hours in 20 C/70 F water (sauna 60-100 C for 10 min then swmming 20 min, and again and again) and they do! (that's a real fact).

 

[wet]

Yes, people go swimming, sometimes in cold or hot water. Many mammals do that at times, but only humans among extant hominoids. When the water is very hot or cold, people usually keep their heads above the water.

I was referring to seawater calm sun-warmed surface but cool dark depth sessile benthic dive/backfloat cycle foraging at tropical lagoons, rather than swimming in general at various locales.

 

[TimoP]

After some researching i found that they are Aquatic Vikings on that AA/Aquatic Stonemen video:
http://forums.deeperblue.com/freedi...cyclical-arc-dive-foraging-21.html#post787859
So it seems to be quite possible that first humans came from Europe to the American continent by water, but not by boat - they came by walking across Atlantic Ocean, on the bottom. They must have some kind of liquid or solid oxygen with them, and they carried it like they carry stones in the video. Some kind of special "oxygenstone". They suck oxygen from it when needed. Ofcourse there is deep, just remember that blue shift, it's in deep dwellers only, like AA and Aquatic Vikings were. But because they were not too long on their UW-trips they didn't lose their color vision ability.

Ofcourse the bottom of Atlantic Ocean is not yet explored systematically. So it's just a question of time when the foot prints of Aquatic Vikings will be found on the bottom of Atlantic! Maybe there is a big pathway network to be found!

If you think it's cold there down, you are right. But they were Vikings from the North and they got much warm by muscle work when carrying oxygen stones! Not problems with the energy supply, they just picked seafood whenever it was on their pathway.
It's possible they had same kind of unknown navigation system as European Eel when going to Sargasso Sea, or they even went with Eels from Europe to Bahamas! (there is (sub)tropical, and it's really worth to AVikings to go there, isn't it?):

"So basically they are heading towards the conveyor belt ocean current which will help propel them toward the Sargasso Sea. That implies some navigational ability. It also suggests they are not just going the shortest distance; they are going the most efficient distance."
BBC - Earth News - Eel reveals its migration secrets

It so easy to conceive A-stories like this, we can do it, too, wet, just check e.g. Mullins's, Fondueset's and Trux's ideas/hypothesis/theories, too. If someday you don't get enough good and wild AA-ideas yourself, just ask us in DB to help you!
:duh :ban

 

[wet]

Just tried to bring a bit of light on the subject, TimoP.

 

[TimoP]

Yes, people go swimming, sometimes in cold or hot water. Many mammals do that at times, but only humans among extant hominoids

"Damn kids, behave yourselves!! (Kids are in the next video)"

Quite bad behavior in the end of video 0:30-0:45, hope nobody has seen that kind of thing in human freediving or swimming trainings! :naughty
rofl

---------

A quite high speed in this monkey's divings. Respect! Not many human kid can do that so well: