PALEOHUMANS

A better scientific paradigm for the origin of the bizarre naked ape

Allan Krill, Professor of geology

Humans are completely unlike other apes. Here is an explanation why.

Humans must have evolved from ancestors that were similar to modern orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees. From DNA we know that humans are very closely related to chimpanzees. But humans are completely different. Humans have large brains, and feet that can't grab. They have almost no fur, and have fat cells beneath the skin that can produce a layer of blubber, like the skin of whales, porpoises, and seals. In hot weather, human skin can sweat a liter of water an hour, but humans can only drink about a liter of water at a time. Humans have very weak muscles compared to apes. Humans run on only two legs, and an average chimpanzee can run faster than any human. Great apes have unshielded nostrils, whereas humans have protruding noses. Baby apes are strong, with much muscle and little fat. They sink like a stone in water. Baby humans are weak, with blubber but little muscle. They are helpless on land, but they love being in water, and actually float in sea water. Humans have only 46 chromosomes, whereas the great apes have 48. These are just a few of the obvious differences. In comparison with apes, humans are really bizarre.

Evolution that creates bizarre versions of familiar animals typically occurs on islands that have a mild climate with abundant food, no competition from other animals, and no predators. This is known as the island syndrome.

I think humans evolved on Bioko Island in a Galapagos-like scenario

Base map: Google maps. Aquatic Ape illustration: Alex Krill

Here is a detailed theory that can explain all the differences between humans and chimpanzees, our closet relatives. It was published in a scientific journal in 2020. But it is being ignored by experts, because it threatens their East African paradigm. (There are no fossils in western Africa, where chimpanzees live, and paleoanthropology focusses on fossils.)

About 6 million years ago, a few chimpanzees were swept out to sea on an uprooted tree. They rafted to proto-Bioko—a newly formed volcanic island 40 kilometers from the coast. On that island there were not yet any trees or forest foods, and no predators such as crocodiles and leopards. There are still no large predators there. The main food for those stranded chimpanzees was probably sea-turtle eggs, shellfish, and seaweed. Many huge sea turtles visit the beaches each night to lay their eggs. It was easy for the chimpanzees to dig up eggs.

The marine chimpanzees learned how to kill a sea turtle, and the whole tribe could share the raw turtle meat. They had reliable food all year. They also had fresh drinking water all the time. Bioko is one of the rainiest places on Earth, with creeks running continuously from the mountains to the sea. There were no crocodiles or leopards patrolling the fresh water sites, as there are everywhere on mainland Africa. Since there was no real vegetation on the rocky volcanic island, the chimpanzees stayed on the beaches and in the warm water, where there was at least some seaweed.

Photo: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/10/endangered-leatherback-turtle-sightings-report

Marine chimpanzees probably evolved into humans within the first million years on Bioko. The chimps spent a lot of time in the water, where they waded on two legs to keep their heads above the surface. That is how they became bipedal. Fur is a disadvantage in sea water, and has been lost by many marine mammals, such as whales, porpoises, and seals. Evolution of the marine chimpanzees favored naked skin and a blubbery body, which helped babies swim and survive. Brains are mostly fat, and large brains evolved from marine DHA-fat. A hooded nose shields the nostrils from water during a dive. Evolution also favored adults and children with long head-hair, which gives infants something to grab and hold on to in the water, in the same way that chimpanzee infants hold on to their mothers' fur. Estrus signals were not useful in water, so females lost the signals that all apes and nearly all land mammals have. These are just a few of the difference between humans and chimpanzees. Marine selection pressures can explain all the differences. The changes may have been helped along by a mutation that reduced the number of chromosomes from 48 to 46. Chromosome changes typically cause physical changes.

For the next 5 million years, I imagine a stable population of a few thousand paleohumans. They resembled modern humans with class 3 obesity, and they lived mostly in the water and on the beaches. Bioko has a 200 km long shoreline with about 34 km of beaches. There are about 20 beaches separated by rocky coasts. The paleohumans probably lived rather densely, as do many marine animals, such as sea lions, penguins, and the marine iguanas on Galapagos. Paleohumans were social people, not loners or hunter-gatherers. Marine iguanas are a perfect model for human evolution: arboreal Green iguanas rafted to a barren Galapagos Island about 8 million years ago. They could only get food in the sea, and became bizarre Marine iguanas. But after vegetation became available, some went inland and lived as a ground-dwelling species, just like humans. None of the iguanas on Galapagos can climb trees.

Photo: https://www.getawaymavens.com/things-to-do-in-the-galapagos-islands/

Since there were many different groups of paleohumans on Bioko, if one group was wiped out by a volcanic eruption or an epidemic, the others would survive and keep the species alive. They thrived for five million years. The island's steep and rocky interior was unappealing to them, so they stayed along the coast. 'Life was a beach'—they spent the days playing, singing and talking. They developed language with remarkably sophisticated grammar and syntax. In this social setting, children who were good at talking and entertaining others were more likely to produce offspring when they became adults. Babies with blubber and facilities for language, music, and dance, were favored by natural selection.

Some paleohumans swam or rafted from Bioko to mainland Africa, or they walked there during periods of low sea level during the Ice Ages. The sea level dropped more than 60 meters many times during the past 2.5 million years, so Bioko was not always an island. But most of the coast of Bioko stayed about the same, so the aquatic habitat of the marine chimpanzees and paleohumans was stable for 6 million years. There are no other islands near Africa with shores that have been stable over this long period.

Base map Google Earth. My yellow notations added.

Most of the paleohumans who ventured over to mainland Africa were killed within a few days by crocodiles, leopards, or hyenas. Paleohumans on Bioko were not aware that predators existed, and they had lost apes' natural defenses. They had not yet invented fire, clothes, shoes, or weapons. Those who survived began inventing things, including new languages with more extensive vocabularies. They left some fossils in East Africa where fossils can be preserved. But there are no fossils of any mammal on Bioko or anywhere in western Africa, because bones decay quickly in the moist warm climate. Paleohumans migrated along the coastlines of Africa and Eurasia. Their coastal habitats are now submerged by the high sea level, so there are no fossils showing their presence. The fossils of Homo Erectus, Denisovans, and Neanderthals that are known in Africa and Eurasia are the remains of paleohumans that evolved mostly on Bioko. If Australopithecus was a real species, it was probably a hybrid humanzee.

When the sea level dropped more than 60 meters from 70,000 to 20,000 years ago, many paleohumans left Bioko across the land bridge that was exposed. If there was a stable population of 1,000 paleohumans on Bioko, about 20 would be born and die each year. If another 20 left Bioko on the land bridge each year for 10,000 years, it would explain the genetic evidence that a 'wave' of humans went from somewhere in Africa to Eurasia.

There are almost no hunter-gatherer cultures in the world today, but a few centuries ago there were many. They were all quite socialized and had remarkably advanced languages. That is because their ancestors evolved on densely populated Bioko. Languages evolve and can be traced almost like DNA. Bantu languages are the oldest languages in Africa and in the world. Their origins are on the African mainland near Bioko. Y-DNA also seems to have its origins near Bioko. DNA from ancient African burials and from living Africans has a small 'ghost' component, that is thought to have come from a population of early humans that lived in western Africa in an unknown location. Of course, I think that location was Bioko.

I propose just 3 stages from chimpanzees to us:
Marine chimpanzees (about 6 million years ago) -> Paleohumans (about 5 million years) -> Hunter-gatherers (about 50,000 years)

DNA will eventually show where humans evolved. Endogenous retroviral DNA (ERVs) have already shown that humans were not on mainland Africa during Pliocene time (about 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago). Humans are lacking Pliocene ERVs that were spread among chimpanzees, gorillas, and other primates in Africa. It is logical that mainland viruses would not have been on Bioko. Other evidence is the fact that humans can catch the disease malaria, whereas chimpanzees don't. Mosquitos that carry the malaria parasite were in Africa, but probably not on Bioko. So chimpanzees (in Africa) evolved a resistance to malaria, whereas humans (on Bioko) did not. In theory, ERVs could also provide a positive type of evidence that humans were on Bioko: if an ERV is found in an endemic primate on Bioko, and in no other primates except humans, it would show that human ancestors lived there.

What became of the semi-aquatic humans, and why are there none today? Here is my suggestion: Hunter-gatherers, with their new cultures, languages, clothing, and weapons, needed to be aggressive to survive. They considered the weak and naked paleohumans to be primitive and backward. Paleohumans were victims of the first genocide of the human race.

My scientific paper on this new paradigm is being avoided. It is a version of the Aquatic Ape hypothesis, that was proposed in 1960 and has been avoided by most experts ever since. Paleoanthropologists —the experts in human evolution— neeed to uphold their East African paradigm, because that is where their fossils are. Paleoanthropology's scientific journals, museums, textbooks, and university departments want to keep fossils as the focus of human evolution. The main trouble with the Bioko model is that if it is proven correct, it's 'Game Over' for the other models of human evolution. Most experts are unwilling to mention the Bioko model.

As a professor, I want to document my research and hypotheses. The links below show some of this documentation.

Allan Krill
allankrill@gmail.com