A hypothesis of ape and human evolution based on comparative biology and plate tectonics Marc Verhaegen [1] , Stephen Munro [2] , Kathelijne Bonne [3] , Frances Mansfield [4] , Mario Vaneechoutte*

https://www.academia.edu/2837-4010/4/2/10.20935/AcadBiol8310 There is broad consensus among paleoanthropologists that extant African hominids (Pan and Gorilla) as well as hominins (our direct ancestors following the split from Pan, i.e., chimpanzee and bonobo) originated in Africa. The prevailing view, that hominins became upright bipeds after moving from tropical forests (the current habitat of Pan and Gorilla) to open savannas in East Africa—where they chased large mammals—is contradicted, however, by fossil, paleo-ecological, and comparative biological and physiological evidence. Here, we propose that hominoids (apes), hominids (great apes), and hominins (humans and fossil species more closely related to Homo than to Pan) instead evolved near water and mostly out of Africa. We propose that Miocene (23.03–5.33 Ma) apes had already evolved an upright, tailless body as an adaptation to living in flooded forests, where they engaged in frequent bipedal wading and below-branch vertical climbing—a type of movement we term vertical aquarborealism. This largely Miocene aquarboreal style of locomotion can be seen as evolutionarily intermediate between the above-branch arboreality of Old World monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) and the various below-branch locomotive styles of extant apes (Hominoidea). Starting from vertical aquarborealism, Homo—at least by the Early Pleistocene (2.58 Ma)—had developed a lifestyle centred around shallow diving, primarily foraging for non-fleeing foods such as shellfish and aquatic plants. We also suggest that the timing of some major tectonic shifts in the African, Arabian, and Eurasian plates during the Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene may help explain key aspects of this evolutionary scenario, including the splitting times of hominoids (apes), hominids, and hominins.