TOP 10 APE THEORIES & THESES OF HUMAN EVOLUTION (SPECIAL MENTION)

 

I’ve compiled my Top 10 Apes – not for my top ten species or types of apes, but for the use of the word ape as a trope, for which humans are the ape. That is, a trope used for naming theories or theses of human evolution – an idea for a top ten which struck me when I realized just how many had ape in their name or title.

 

And yes – I had to stretch my subject of ape theories and theses for human evolution to round out my top ten, but I’ll stretch it out even more for my usual twenty special mentions for various aspects of human evolution. (Hence no tier rankings – they’re all weird or wild-tier

 

 

(1) WALKING APE (BIPEDALISM)

 

My ape title for human bipedalism, which has been the subject of several theories for its evolution – “There are at least twelve distinct hypotheses as to how and why bipedalism evolved in humans, and also some debate as to when”.

 

(2) RUNNING APE (ENDURANCE & PERSISTENCE)

 

As the saying goes, you have to walk before you can run – and the walking ape leads naturally to the running ape or the endurance running hypothesis – “a series of conjectures which presume humans evolved anatomical and physiological adaptations to run long distances…proponents of this hypothesis assert that endurance running served as a means for hominins to effectively engage in persistence hunting”

 

(3) GRASPING APE (POWER & PRECISION GRIP)

 

Alternatively, the gripping ape – the evolved power and precision grip of the human hand (including the ulnar opposition or contact between the thumb and little finger), “underlying all the skilled manipulations”, as well as the act of throwing.

In tabletop game terms, humans maxed their dexterity and intelligence stats.

 

(4) GAZING APE (COOPERATIVE EYE)

 

My ape title for the cooperative eye hypothesis – “a proposed explanation for the appearance of the human eye…that the eye’s distinctive visible characteristics evolved to make it easier for humans to follow another’s gaze while communicating or while working together on tasks.”

That is, humans have eyes with white or unpigmented sclera (for distinct color contrast between the sclera and the iris or pupil), as well as eyes that are larger in proportion to body size – “among primates, humans are the only species where the outline of the eye and the position of the iris can be clearly seen in each individual”.

 

(5) CHATTERING APE (COMPLEX LANGUAGE)

 

It’s not for nothing that the final episode (and chapter) of David Attenborough’s Life on Earth for humanity is called The Compulsive Communicators – with the evolution of complex language as the distinctive feature of humans.

 

(6) HUNTING APE

 

Well, this one’s obvious, consistent with the hunting hypothesis – “that human evolution was primarily influenced by the activity of hunting for relatively large and fast animals, and that the activity of hunting distinguished human ancestors from other hominins”.

 

(7) GATHERING APE

 

The counterpoint to the hunting hypothesis – “that gathering rather than hunting was the main factor in the emergence of anatomically modern humans”.

 

(8) COOKING APE

 

As I opine elsewhere, much of the Stone Age might be better termed the Fire Age, for the control of fire by early humans. Among the uses of this was for cooking food, leading to the cooking hypothesis, which “proposes that the ability to cook allowed for the brain size of hominids to increase over time”.

 

(9) BRAINY APE (EXPENSIVE TISSUE)

 

Another one that’s obvious – most theories of human evolution focus on the brain and brain size, including the expensive tissue hypothesis or ETH that “relates brain and gut size in evolution (specifically in human evolution)”.

Essentially, to evolve its large brain, humans had to sacrifice “less energy on other expensive tissues” – which was “achieved by eating an easy-to-digest diet and evolving a smaller, less energy-intensive gut”.

Again in tabletop terms, humans were minmax players, minimizing their gut stats to max out their brain stats (minimizing their constitution to max out intelligence?)

 

(10)  ANDROGYNOUS APE (REDUCED S€XUAL DIMORPHISM)

 

Well, not really androgynous – humans still have pronounced sexual dimorphism but it is decreased and I wanted a catchy ape title for it.

 

(11) NEOTENOUS APE (ETERNAL CHILD)

 

Neoteny “is the retention of juvenile traits into adulthood” – and it is argued to be a distinctive feature of humans compared to non-human primates, both for physical and behavioral traits, while the evolutionary origins and reasons for that distinctive feature are also the subject of argument

The neoteny thesis is argued by various proponents of it but none perhaps encapsulated it best as Clive Bromhall with the title of his book The Eternal Child. (Bromhall also points out the same neoteny applies to the animal longest domesticated by humans – dogs).

 

(12) APE OUT OF AFRICA

 

Yes – it’s my ape title for the Out of Africa or OOA theory, “the most widely accepted paleo-anthropological model of the geographic origin and early migration of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens)”.

 

(13) GRANDMOTHER APE

 

“The grandmother hypothesis is a hypothesis to explain the existence of menopause in human life history by identifying the adaptive value of extended kin networking”

In other words, leaving the kids with grandma is good evolutionary ‘strategy’.

 

(14) PATRIARCHAL APE

 

An alternative to the grandmother hypothesis, which adds in the “male benefits of continued spermatogenesis and their roles in assistance”

In other words, silverbacking it with a younger model while leaving the kids with grandma.

 

(15) BEHAVIOURALLY MODERN APE

 

Just my ape title for the “suite of behavioral and cognitive traits believed to distinguish current Homo sapiens from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates”.

Heh – suite. Good evening, will you be staying in our behaviorally modern suite?

 

(16) HOBBIT APES (HOMO FLORESIENSIS)

 

As usual, getting to the weirder and wilder entries (or deep below the iceberg) in my special mentions – and I just wanted to feature Homo floresiensis, nicknamed as hobbits, “an extinct species of small archaic humans that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago”.

 

(17) AVIAN APES

 

No, not the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz – just a playful reference to the observation of Steve Stewart-Williams in The Ape That Understood the Universe that we are primates with the mating habits of birds

 

(18) ANT APES

 

Another playful reference to the ability of humans for living in social groups – notably our cities – that far exceed the scale of non-human primates (or even our own ancestors) and arguably only find comparison in social insects

 

(19) APES OF GOD

 

Yet another playful reference to humans as the only primates or indeed animals that appear to have mythology or religion – or perhaps a play on evolution and creationism.

 

(20) S€XY APES (HOMO ERECTUS)

 

As usual, I like to reserve my twentieth special mention for a kinky or kinkier entry – which is surprisingly easy in this case given the prominence of s€xual selection or behavior in studies of human evolution, and I couldn’t resist the obvious gag of using Homo erectus to connote this.