Speaker 1: Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind?
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: it's Saturday. Time to go into the vault for a
Speaker 1: classic episode of the show. This one was originally called
Speaker 1: Surfing Neander Tolls and it published on August nineteen. So
Speaker 1: grab a board, the surf is up. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, a production of I Heart Radios
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And before we turn the mics on, or actually after
Speaker 1: we turned the mics on, but before we officially started
Speaker 1: the episode, we were just talking about is there a
Speaker 1: better eighties action movie than Point Break? Um? I mean,
Speaker 1: arguably there there are some, definitely some action pictures that
Speaker 1: I love more than Point Break, But Point Break has
Speaker 1: a purity to it, you know, this like this, this
Speaker 1: the weird nobility of this band of nomadic surfers who
Speaker 1: are also bank robbers and uh and then the man
Speaker 1: who is pursuing them, a man who must become a
Speaker 1: surfer in order to catch surfers. Because isn't that it
Speaker 1: that the old saying in order to catch a surfer,
Speaker 1: you must become a surfer. Uh, something like that. Patrick
Speaker 1: Swayze is the key to the movie. Oh and hey,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you're out there, some kind of
Speaker 1: pedants saying wait a minute point break didn't come out
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties. How are you saying it's the
Speaker 1: best eighties action movie? As we all know, Sinna in
Speaker 1: the cinema world, the nineteen eighties lasted until Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's a solid argument. But yeah, this was.
Speaker 1: This was some some really great sways in this film,
Speaker 1: Like Swayzy just has such such a unique charisma that
Speaker 1: he's it's it's like with the Rhodhouse. You know, he's
Speaker 1: he's able to be just so serious in this role
Speaker 1: and it's and you're you're laughing because it is ridiculous,
Speaker 1: but at the same time you're totally buying into this presentation.
Speaker 1: He's giving you absolutely the the deep seriousness and the
Speaker 1: delivery of the lines like pain don't hurt, the fact
Speaker 1: that he is is trying to commit to this character
Speaker 1: who's like a philosopher bouncer. Yeah, in Roadhouse, but now,
Speaker 1: I mean, essentially, I think he's playing the same character
Speaker 1: in Point Break, and that in Roadhouse he's a philosopher bouncer.
Speaker 1: In Point Break, he's the same character. He's now become
Speaker 1: a philosopher surfer slash bank robber. Yeah, and and he's
Speaker 1: he's tremendous. He just like he eats that they've seen
Speaker 1: he's in point Point Break is a great example of
Speaker 1: one of these eighties again, but it was the eighties.
Speaker 1: Eighties action movies that is so silly in a way
Speaker 1: that like, there are still action movies that have a
Speaker 1: great spirit of silliness that aren't like these unpleasant, self
Speaker 1: serious action movies. Uh well, you know, a good example
Speaker 1: is like the later movies in the Fast and the
Speaker 1: Furious franchise, which can be a lot of fun, but
Speaker 1: they are they're in the joke like the rock is
Speaker 1: winking at the camera. It's you know, it's played explicitly
Speaker 1: for a kind of like wet laughter that like cars
Speaker 1: can fly and all this, But that's not what's going
Speaker 1: on in Point Break, Point Break, and and some of
Speaker 1: the movies like it are just as silly as the
Speaker 1: later Fast and the Furious movies, but they're not they're
Speaker 1: not winking at you. They're not in on the joke. Instead,
Speaker 1: they've got Patrick Swayzy, who's taken himself real seriously. I
Speaker 1: wonder if part of that is that a film like
Speaker 1: Point Break like building on the in a sense, even
Speaker 1: though it's an eighties and so technically nineties film, it's
Speaker 1: building on like the grittier uh, like a film heritage
Speaker 1: of the nineteen seventies that preceded it, and where whereas
Speaker 1: nineties films are are proceeding from the eighties films, uh
Speaker 1: and so forth to where there's just like the initial
Speaker 1: groundwork underneath something like The Fast and the Furious, it's
Speaker 1: just that much sillier and that that and just further
Speaker 1: removed from like nineteen seventies cinema. Wait a minute, why
Speaker 1: are we talking about Point Break? Oh? Yeah, we're talking
Speaker 1: about it because this episode is about surfing the inder Tals.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's also not about surfing Neandertals, but it
Speaker 1: is about Neanderthals. It's about surfer's ear and uh, surfing
Speaker 1: the Andertals, the working title of Point Break that was
Speaker 1: on the script. It It is exactly where my mind
Speaker 1: went when I first read a very recent scientific paper
Speaker 1: that came out about the under tolls and surfers here.
Speaker 1: But but before we get into all that, um and
Speaker 1: we may come back two point break. As we proceed again,
Speaker 1: I want to be clear that this episode is not
Speaker 1: really about surfing. It doesn't have that much to do
Speaker 1: with surfing. But I do want to point out the
Speaker 1: ancient origins of this aquatic practice we call surfing. What
Speaker 1: surfing wasn't invented in the nineteen sixties, No, no, no.
Speaker 1: And I was looking at a couple of sources on this,
Speaker 1: but but one of the better ones that came across
Speaker 1: um it was a book by Ben R. Finney and
Speaker 1: James D. Houston called Surfing, A History of the Ancient
Speaker 1: Hawaiian Sport and U pretty inscifle. They point out that
Speaker 1: that all you need really to surf is a surfer
Speaker 1: and a board and of course waves um or something
Speaker 1: standing in for a board, such as a canoe, or
Speaker 1: even the surfer's own body. I mean, you can body surf.
Speaker 1: What You don't need a surfballa you don't need a
Speaker 1: surf suit. Well, as we'll discuss, it can be very helpful,
Speaker 1: especially in the colder waters. But you know, it's just
Speaker 1: it's ultimately and I don't know. Have you ever surfed, Joe,
Speaker 1: have you ever? No, I've I mean very limited water experience.
Speaker 1: I've done like knee boarding, and that's I know, that's
Speaker 1: not surfing. I'd say that's the closest to that. You've
Speaker 1: You've gotten up on your knees on a surfboard, well,
Speaker 1: not on a surfboard, on a knee board. I don't
Speaker 1: know how different they are. I've gotten up on my
Speaker 1: knees on a floating thing that was being towed behind
Speaker 1: a boat. Okay, well a little. It's not close, but
Speaker 1: but it's it's enough. We can we can build from here.
Speaker 1: So I I am not a surfer, but I on
Speaker 1: a trip to Whoa I, um, you know, like like
Speaker 1: twenty years ago or something. Um, I was encouraged by
Speaker 1: a friend to go out and try it. This friend
Speaker 1: had surfed before. This is very helpful I find. If
Speaker 1: you were going to try to surf, uh, certainly go
Speaker 1: with someone who has at least done it once before,
Speaker 1: but preverably somebody who who is more skilled than that.
Speaker 1: But there is this kind of magical moment where you're
Speaker 1: you're pushing the board, you're you're you're paddling and kicking.
Speaker 1: You're just going as hard and as fast as you can. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then it comes this this almost magical moment where
Speaker 1: the wave catches the board and suddenly the waves propelling
Speaker 1: the board. And this is the point where then you
Speaker 1: can climb up on onto your knees on the board.
Speaker 1: And then and once you you know, have your figure
Speaker 1: out what you're doing, this is where you can rise
Speaker 1: up on both of your feet on the board and
Speaker 1: you can ride the surfboard like a surfer rides a surfboard.
Speaker 1: And it sounds hard. I mean, it's it's it's one
Speaker 1: of those things where I definitely would have given up
Speaker 1: had I not been encouraged to keep doing it, you know,
Speaker 1: to just keep doing it again once more. Let's go,
Speaker 1: let's paddle back, and then paddle as hard and fast
Speaker 1: as you can to try and catch this magical moment
Speaker 1: when the when the board catches you. Um. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so like once so, all you need is aboard the
Speaker 1: waves yourself and then, like the patients and or courage
Speaker 1: to to reach that point where you can rise up
Speaker 1: on the board and become comfortable enough doing so that
Speaker 1: you can manipulate the bird board further. Okay, so surfing
Speaker 1: was not invented by the beach boys in the mid
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Where does surfing actually come from? Well, as
Speaker 1: the authors at this point out how Hawaii is of
Speaker 1: course strongly associated with surfing, and humans seem to have
Speaker 1: first arrived at these far flung Polynesian islands by between
Speaker 1: three hundred and four hundred CE. Now, long boards would
Speaker 1: have developed over time, and the author's guess that Hawaiian
Speaker 1: surfing is ultimately perhaps a thousand years old, Yet the
Speaker 1: principles involved would have been known to Pacific islanders and
Speaker 1: the first pioneers to enter the Pacific as far back
Speaker 1: as two thousand b C. So, um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: one of those again, it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: the necessary technology uh, and and and ability. You know.
Speaker 1: It's not something that where it did not exist before
Speaker 1: thousand years ago, you know, conceivably uh, you know, these
Speaker 1: more ancient cultures knew of the properties involved. So we
Speaker 1: don't know for sure how far back it could go, right,
Speaker 1: And there's also some debate whether a form of stand
Speaker 1: up paddle boarding practiced by the pre Incan civilization in
Speaker 1: Peru would have constituted surfing. Some two thousand years ago.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's another thing you get into, you know,
Speaker 1: discussions of the terminology. Is it truly surfing, is it's
Speaker 1: something else? Are are the people on these paddle boards
Speaker 1: ever reaching that point where the you know, the magic
Speaker 1: of the wave takes over and propels them. But anyway,
Speaker 1: I just I found it. It'll be useful I think
Speaker 1: to just think of that as we proceed, uh. And
Speaker 1: in order to also keep it connected to surfing in
Speaker 1: some way, to think of of surfing as this thing
Speaker 1: that is at least a thousand years old, maybe all
Speaker 1: older and uh and ultimately, just based on the technology involved,
Speaker 1: is not all that uh, you know, constrained to a
Speaker 1: particular portion of human time. For all we know dinosaurs
Speaker 1: for surfing, definitely none for the dinosaurs, well, no, the
Speaker 1: dinosaurs were not surfing. But I mean, ultimately, to come
Speaker 1: back to the title of the episode, when you start
Speaker 1: wondering if Neanderthals surfed, there's absolutely no evidence that they did.
Speaker 1: But when you start considering the technology involved, yes, somebody
Speaker 1: could make a case for it, and it would be
Speaker 1: you know, you wouldn't have be able to prove it
Speaker 1: necessary that we wouldn't be able to disprove it. So
Speaker 1: what we're going to be talking about though in this
Speaker 1: episode is more a matter of what is known as
Speaker 1: surfers ear. Okay, Now, I remember from when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, people I knew getting swimmers ear, but that
Speaker 1: was just like ear infections, right right, Swimmers ear is
Speaker 1: is the different things. Bacterial infection of the outer ear
Speaker 1: often caused by trap water, So water or debris gets
Speaker 1: trapped in the ear and it can cause an infection
Speaker 1: and uh and depending on like the state and condition
Speaker 1: of your your ear canals. Uh, some people are more
Speaker 1: uh you know, have have more tendants, more greater tendency
Speaker 1: to uh to get swimmers eer than other people. I
Speaker 1: remember people with swimmers ere being treated by just getting
Speaker 1: like ethyl alcohol pulled in there or maybe I don't
Speaker 1: know what kind of some kind of alcohol alcohol uh
Speaker 1: poured in their ear. Yeah, there's just a stest standard
Speaker 1: swimmers ear um droplets you can get. I use some
Speaker 1: like just the other day because I swim fairly regularly.
Speaker 1: But uh. But but then also not to be confused
Speaker 1: with the drops you would get for a full blown
Speaker 1: ear infection. Like this is where yeah, everything is actually
Speaker 1: getting like more and more painful in your ear, and
Speaker 1: that may require uh, some more advanced drops, but that's
Speaker 1: not really what we're talking about here. What we're talking
Speaker 1: about here is exostosis of the external auditory canal or
Speaker 1: external auditory exostosis or E a E also known as
Speaker 1: surfers here and then the game. Yeah, and it's it's
Speaker 1: a condition. It's a condition that affects both modern humans
Speaker 1: and our our prehistoric ancestors. So what is E a E. Well,
Speaker 1: these are dense bony growths that that that grow that
Speaker 1: slowly extend into the auditory ear canal. Whoa bony growths
Speaker 1: in the ear canal? Now, please reassure me, Robert that
Speaker 1: these growths are not like spiny you know. No, No,
Speaker 1: these are rounded growths um that you know. Basically, if
Speaker 1: you look at it, if you look at an image
Speaker 1: of this, it looks like they're bony growths on you know,
Speaker 1: underneath the skin on either side that are like that,
Speaker 1: are that are pushing in, causing kind of a cave in,
Speaker 1: gradual cave in of the auditory canal. That still doesn't
Speaker 1: sound good. So the question is what causes them? Well,
Speaker 1: this is where it gets weird. It is, uh, we
Speaker 1: basically still have a lot of questions about surfer's ear,
Speaker 1: But the widely accepted hypothesis is the is the aquatic
Speaker 1: hype ofthesis, and that is that it is caused by
Speaker 1: repeated exposure to cold water or or in some cases
Speaker 1: cold wind, but especially cold water. And it's typically encountered
Speaker 1: in cold watered in cold water foraging among traditional and
Speaker 1: ancient peoples, as well as among cold water sports practice
Speaker 1: today such as surfing. Coming back to the question of
Speaker 1: what is required for surfing, and you asked about body
Speaker 1: suits and wet suits or dry suits, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and and a part of this is has to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that, in addition to having to deal
Speaker 1: with you know, potentially being scraped up against things you
Speaker 1: don't want your body scraped against, you're often also surfing
Speaker 1: in colder environments and uh, and you want to protect
Speaker 1: your body from the cold. But the cold water is
Speaker 1: is also an irritant to the inner ear, and uh,
Speaker 1: and it is the most commonly observed irritant that leads
Speaker 1: to surfers ear, and repeated irritation leads to this growth. Now,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, it sounded like you were alluding to
Speaker 1: they're being potential, multiple potential explanations. Right, well, this is
Speaker 1: I mean, well this is the primary explanation, um, and
Speaker 1: I did not encounter another explanation that that was really presented. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's just there are some mysteries remain about exactly how
Speaker 1: it occurs. Uh. And Uh, anybody that's discussing surfers here
Speaker 1: like is sticking to the aquatic hypothesis here. Uh, and
Speaker 1: then certainly the evidence bears it out that it's I mean,
Speaker 1: you look at at where surfers here occurs, and it
Speaker 1: occurs in the ears of individuals who are engaging in
Speaker 1: a lot of cold water activity, be it foraging, you know,
Speaker 1: pearl diving that sort of thing, or surfing. But you know,
Speaker 1: other forms of irritation can can can technically cause it, uh,
Speaker 1: because it's just gonna result in tissue inflammation in the
Speaker 1: inner ear. Now, so that's going to happen after just
Speaker 1: like you have a couple of bad days in cold
Speaker 1: water and you get these growths. No, no, no, it's uh,
Speaker 1: this is something that's going to develop over the years.
Speaker 1: So typically you see it manifest in a person during
Speaker 1: their like their mid to late thirties or possibly in
Speaker 1: their forties, lining up with the timeline of their exposure
Speaker 1: to the irritation. It could potentially occur earlier though, But
Speaker 1: like this is like when you think about like someone's
Speaker 1: prime surfing years and at what point they've been surfing
Speaker 1: for uh, you know, for say twenty years, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Uh, it's gonna line up with this. So
Speaker 1: you're more likely to see it in people who spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time in the water over a long
Speaker 1: period of their lives. Right, Yeah, they're spending a lot
Speaker 1: of time in cold water, Like they're going surfing a
Speaker 1: lot where they're going pearl diving a lot with with
Speaker 1: a uh, you know, a fair degree of regularity. Well,
Speaker 1: so it would seem like having bony growths protruding into
Speaker 1: your ear canal would not be a good thing. Right,
Speaker 1: So for for the for the longest, it's not really
Speaker 1: an issue, but you know, it'll reach the point where
Speaker 1: you'll have potential complications from your essentially you're closing ear canals.
Speaker 1: That includes decreased hearing capability uh and increased likelihood of
Speaker 1: blockage in an infection due to trapped ear wax or debris.
Speaker 1: And you know, you see generally you're looking at a
Speaker 1: five to eight millimeter diameter ear canal, but this can
Speaker 1: be narrowed to almost total blockage over time by surfers here.
Speaker 1: Am I imagining that there's kind of a cultural stereotype
Speaker 1: where the you know, the the archetype, the surfer dude,
Speaker 1: the surfer person is saying like, what what did you say?
Speaker 1: A lot? Is that? Is that just my imagination or
Speaker 1: does that exist as part of the stereotype? Um, I mean,
Speaker 1: there's certain certainly a crossover between like the surfer stereotype
Speaker 1: and sort of the the dude and sort of hippie
Speaker 1: freewheeling stereotype. I don't know if lack of hearing is
Speaker 1: really part of it, but it would make sense that
Speaker 1: that it would be right because based on what we're
Speaker 1: discussing here, I mean, this is this is where you're
Speaker 1: going to see some potential hearing loss due to exposure
Speaker 1: to the cold water. Now. An important thing to stress, though,
Speaker 1: is that we only discovered surfers here in the last
Speaker 1: century or so. I believe the first report on it
Speaker 1: was a German paper by Welker h Uber in eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty four. And uh, and so you know, we haven't
Speaker 1: had that long to like really study it and figure
Speaker 1: out what's what the deal is with it, or even
Speaker 1: to figure out how in know ways to treat it
Speaker 1: or how to to prevent it. But the most obvious
Speaker 1: ways to prevent it are of course to avoid regular
Speaker 1: cold water activities um which may not be an option
Speaker 1: or or desirable for you if if you're really into
Speaker 1: surfing or you depend on some sort of cold water foraging.
Speaker 1: But I've read that cold water surfers are six more
Speaker 1: likely to experience it than warm water surfers and sounds
Speaker 1: like a significant effect. Now, you can also wear varying
Speaker 1: forms of ear protection that will help, ranging from special
Speaker 1: plugs to cat special caps to go over your head
Speaker 1: in your ear, to certain varieties of wet suits. But
Speaker 1: if you reach the point where where the bony protrusions
Speaker 1: have grown to the point that it's an issue, doctors
Speaker 1: can also remove the expotosis with a surgical drill. There
Speaker 1: I think two different procedures, two different ways of going
Speaker 1: in there and drilling back the bone the bony growths.
Speaker 1: And the good news is that if if you have
Speaker 1: this done, you'll probably you really probably only have to
Speaker 1: do it once because generally, given the timeline of them
Speaker 1: growing back. They can grow back, but you probably won't
Speaker 1: reach that second point where you'll need to have them removed.
Speaker 1: All right, looks like we need to take a break.
Speaker 1: But when we come back, we will ask the question
Speaker 1: of why these spurs and the ears? All right, we're back,
Speaker 1: all right. So we've been talking about surfers ere or
Speaker 1: the idea of external auditory exostoses or e a E.
Speaker 1: And these are these bone like protrusions into the ear
Speaker 1: canal that seem to pop up in people who spend
Speaker 1: a lot of their lives in cold water. If you're
Speaker 1: constantly irritating the ear canal with cold water, these things
Speaker 1: are likely to pop up. Now, I guess we haven't
Speaker 1: addressed yet why they occur. Well, if you think back
Speaker 1: to the Bible, you have Cane and Able and uh
Speaker 1: Able you know, was was really into stand on the land.
Speaker 1: Cane was a big surfer, So God punish it now, Um,
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with that. Now. Now, this
Speaker 1: is another area where it's there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: open questions about it. Now, so some argue that it's
Speaker 1: essentially like bone spurs, you know, which these occur either
Speaker 1: due to these occur you know, due to constant irritation
Speaker 1: or stress generally in the feet where you have these
Speaker 1: bony um you know, protrusions that are forming in the
Speaker 1: foot could be quite painful. So one idea is that
Speaker 1: it's basically that irritation leading to growth, leading to symptoms.
Speaker 1: And there's not a lot else beyond that in terms
Speaker 1: of why, like what is the reason, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's like asking what is what is the reason for
Speaker 1: bone spurs? What is you know, what are the reason
Speaker 1: for for various ailments that afflict us due to the
Speaker 1: things that we insist on do ing due to our
Speaker 1: you know, our our human desire to to ride waves
Speaker 1: or climb mountains to ridiculous heights, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But there is one area we will see an argument
Speaker 1: for a purpose behind all that. Unfortunately it's in aquatic
Speaker 1: eight theory. Oh yeah, So aquatic ape theory has come
Speaker 1: up on the show before, and I think we've talked
Speaker 1: about how this is one of those theories that's like
Speaker 1: that's sticky. It's sticky beyond its explanatory power, and it's
Speaker 1: hard to know exactly why some some hypotheses are like this,
Speaker 1: but I think it tends to be the ones that
Speaker 1: are just the most uh, that offered the most totalizing
Speaker 1: explanation for the most phenomena through the most interesting image,
Speaker 1: and it does that. It but it is also widely
Speaker 1: rejected by science. And we can talk about some reasons
Speaker 1: for that in a minute. Yeah, but it does continue
Speaker 1: to come up, and you know, in fact, it was
Speaker 1: it was recently brought up and by none other than
Speaker 1: Sir David Attenborough himself. He apparently on a BBC four
Speaker 1: um series he talked about it and he there's something
Speaker 1: that criticized him for you know, bringing up, you know,
Speaker 1: a redundant scientific theory. Well, I'm not gonna slam I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we talk about theories that are not accepted
Speaker 1: because you know, it's okay to talk about things. I agree, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't have to think something is correct to talk
Speaker 1: about it. But it sounds like he was sort of
Speaker 1: advocating it. Well, I mean, he has a history of
Speaker 1: being interested in it. I read that he also organized
Speaker 1: the symposium on the topic back in But you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you said, we discuss theories and hypotheses on
Speaker 1: this show that that are you know, sometimes definitely under
Speaker 1: the category of of rejected or unprovable. Uh. And I
Speaker 1: think my my opinion is that it is okay to
Speaker 1: discuss these It's informative to it, and to discuss these ideas,
Speaker 1: you know, as long as you're approaching them with the
Speaker 1: right attitude and you're not like you know, you're not seeking,
Speaker 1: uh to to prove them. You know, in in your
Speaker 1: discussion of the of of of what is unprovable, right,
Speaker 1: you're not becoming an evangelist for something based on bad evidence. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: So for a brief refresh, in case you don't recall
Speaker 1: us talking about this theory in the past, the short
Speaker 1: version is I think that the original idea was that
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty a marine biologist named Alistair Hardy proposed
Speaker 1: this idea that we had an aquatic primate ancestor maybe
Speaker 1: four to seven million years ago. And he proposed this
Speaker 1: in this article a New Scientist. I think he also
Speaker 1: gave a big talk about this. I think the idea
Speaker 1: is that us having a an aquatic or semi aquatic
Speaker 1: primate ancestor could explain many interesting morphological features of humans
Speaker 1: that distinguish us from our closest relatives like the other
Speaker 1: great apes. And there are a lot of examples of this,
Speaker 1: like why do we have less body hair than the
Speaker 1: other great apes? Why do we have this, you know,
Speaker 1: smoother skin, And his idea was, well, maybe we lost
Speaker 1: body hair and got smooth skin to streamline us for
Speaker 1: swimming to reduce drag in the water. Um, why do
Speaker 1: we have a thicker layer of subcutaneous fat uh than
Speaker 1: some of the other than I think all the other
Speaker 1: great apes. And his idea here is, well, maybe that's
Speaker 1: like what we see in marine mammals that they use
Speaker 1: for water insulation to help keep their bodies warm. Why
Speaker 1: do we stand upright instead of walking on all fours?
Speaker 1: The ideas well, maybe we had to wade in the
Speaker 1: shallows and that got us standing up. And while it
Speaker 1: is an interesting idea, and I think you know Hardy
Speaker 1: it was it was clever for Hardy to come up
Speaker 1: with this. I think we now have better explanations for
Speaker 1: a lot of these interesting differences between humans and the
Speaker 1: other great apes. And there's also no direct physical evidence
Speaker 1: for the aquatic ape theory. But to bring it back
Speaker 1: to the context here is this You're saying that some
Speaker 1: enthusiasts of the aquatic ape theory would believe that our
Speaker 1: ear canals or features of our ear canals would seem
Speaker 1: to fit in with that list of supposed aquatic adaptations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've ad e a positioned as possible evidence. You know
Speaker 1: that it's a narrowing of the ear canals and keeping
Speaker 1: with the narrowing of ear canals and aquatic mammals. It's
Speaker 1: true enough the ear canals and toothed whales are narrow
Speaker 1: and clogged with debris and wax. In bleeen whale ear
Speaker 1: canals are plugged with a waxy cap. Now you know
Speaker 1: they're obvious problems with this because it's not like, you know,
Speaker 1: there's not some sort of Lamarchian scenario going on here
Speaker 1: where surfers starts surfing and then their ears mutate into
Speaker 1: into weird forms. It's not like the children of surfers
Speaker 1: have have permanently plugged ear holes or anything. But maybe
Speaker 1: the idea would be that we evolved the the adaptation
Speaker 1: that gives our bodies the capability to adapt to repeated
Speaker 1: water explight or or we would have developed the genetic
Speaker 1: predisposition for for surfers here, and we do have a
Speaker 1: genetic predisposition for surfers here. Uh that that's that seems
Speaker 1: to be the case. But um, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: a stretch to tie it in with this uh largely
Speaker 1: refuted theory. Yeah, well, I mean I want to say
Speaker 1: again not that we accept the theory or would advocate it,
Speaker 1: but in the defense of this theory, I mean, it
Speaker 1: is interesting to consider, and there's nothing inherently implausible about
Speaker 1: the situation it imagines, nor nor insidious. It's not like
Speaker 1: an anti science theory, right right, right, it's just so
Speaker 1: there's nothing implausible about like prehistoric primates and migrating to
Speaker 1: a partially aquatic lifestyle and gaining biological adaptations in the process.
Speaker 1: It happened with other mammals, right, So it's not hard
Speaker 1: to believe that a similar thing could have in principle
Speaker 1: happened with primates. But the question is, just is that
Speaker 1: what the evidence we have today's supports, And I think
Speaker 1: most experts, for good reasons, think the answer is no.
Speaker 1: M Most experts today believe the evidence for humans having
Speaker 1: an aquatic ape ancestor doesn't hold up very well. Again,
Speaker 1: there's zero direct evidence of it, so we don't have
Speaker 1: like remains of an aquatic ancestor that just doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: So you're you're having to hypothesize a sort of like
Speaker 1: lost period that we haven't found direct evidence of yet,
Speaker 1: but just reason backwards from traits that exist later. But
Speaker 1: there's a basic question here. I can't I came across
Speaker 1: this on from the writings of some paleo anthropologists, so
Speaker 1: I'm sorry now I'm forgetting the the person's name. But
Speaker 1: here here's a basic answer. If all these traits that
Speaker 1: they're trying to explain through the aquatic ape theory were
Speaker 1: acquired through an aquatic lifestyle that happened maybe four to
Speaker 1: seven million years ago, why were all the aquatic traits
Speaker 1: retained for millions of years after our ancestors supposedly moved
Speaker 1: back to dry land. You would you would expect like
Speaker 1: then the these traits would be lost because now they'd
Speaker 1: be vestigial. We'd grow all that lovely hair back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: unless you pose it like, well, actually, it turned out
Speaker 1: once you moved back on the land, there was a
Speaker 1: good reason for retaining that trait. Now, now it stayed
Speaker 1: because it served some other survival purpose. But then you
Speaker 1: could just short circuit the aquatic ape situation and say, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we just got those traits because it served some
Speaker 1: other purpose. So right, like like coming back to the
Speaker 1: the hair theory of like the less hair you have,
Speaker 1: the more you're able to show off that parasite free skin. Right,
Speaker 1: that's a common theory. I mean, so, there are a
Speaker 1: couple of major theories that exist now to explain why
Speaker 1: humans ancestors lost a lot of the body hair they
Speaker 1: originally had. And we don't know the answer, but some
Speaker 1: fairly plausible answers seemed to be that that it helped
Speaker 1: with with heat dispersal uh, and that it was maybe
Speaker 1: a very good sexual selection signal. It it showed off
Speaker 1: I don't have any lice on me because look how
Speaker 1: little hair I have. And it turns out that I
Speaker 1: think there are better explanations like that, And again we
Speaker 1: don't know them for sure, but they seem like very plausible,
Speaker 1: fitting with the evidence, explanations for all of these traits
Speaker 1: that are answered through the aquatic ape theory. So why
Speaker 1: do we stand up on two legs? We don't know
Speaker 1: the answer, but a good candidate for that seems to
Speaker 1: be that we were using our hands for things we
Speaker 1: adapted to have to want to have free hands, uh,
Speaker 1: and other things like oh, a common one that's cited
Speaker 1: for the aquatic ape hypothesis is that why do we
Speaker 1: have voluntary control over our breath? Right, we wouldn't need
Speaker 1: that unless we were trying to be able to dive
Speaker 1: underwater to get you know, marine mollusks or something is prey.
Speaker 1: But what if we evolved voluntary control of the breath
Speaker 1: because we needed to speak, right, to speak to seeing,
Speaker 1: you know, so to communicate with each other, with each other,
Speaker 1: that these are activities that require control of breath. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: I guess my main takeaway is that, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to slam aquatic ape too hard. It's not
Speaker 1: like an odious theory or something. It's just that I
Speaker 1: think it's something that is. It's unfortunately sticky, and there
Speaker 1: are better hypotheses more in line with the actual evidence.
Speaker 1: We have to explain the same morphull logical features that
Speaker 1: people appeal to the aquatic ape theory to explain. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: on that note, let's take one more break. But when
Speaker 1: we come back, we will we'll get to some more
Speaker 1: good stuff. Discussing surfer's ear in human remains but also
Speaker 1: in the remains of Neanderthals are So I think all
Speaker 1: this stuff about surfer's ear is fascinating in and of itself,
Speaker 1: but the the extra cool thing here is that surfer's
Speaker 1: ear is detectable in human remains, right, because it's not
Speaker 1: just soft flesh. They're like bony protruser. Yes, so we
Speaker 1: can we can look to coastal humans of the past
Speaker 1: and judge to what degree they were interacting with cold water,
Speaker 1: and then we can also based on that, determine how
Speaker 1: such acts were divided between the genders based on the
Speaker 1: skeletal remains. Yeah. For instance, in December of researchers from
Speaker 1: Washington University in St. Louis discovered skeletal evidence of surfer's
Speaker 1: ear in a pre Columbian Panamanian village. They were looking
Speaker 1: at a hundred twenty five skulls from nine burial side
Speaker 1: and they found seven cases in males, one in female.
Speaker 1: So this is this is interesting. You think of Panama
Speaker 1: and you think of you may think of warmer waters,
Speaker 1: but the water in the Gulf of Panama is actually
Speaker 1: quite cold between January and April. And the researchers believe
Speaker 1: that the divers here, that the remains that they found
Speaker 1: were likely specialized pearl divers uh probably going after stuff
Speaker 1: like like mother of pearl or or the orange and
Speaker 1: purple pearls that derived from two species of thorny oysters.
Speaker 1: These were these were popular in the region and you
Speaker 1: also find these artifacts among the veried dead in these
Speaker 1: grave sites. Also, Spanish explorers would later record the activities
Speaker 1: of such pearl divers as well as you know, staying there.
Speaker 1: They were trained since childhood to dive down four fathoms
Speaker 1: that's twenty four ft or seven point three meters deep.
Speaker 1: My ears are hurt and just thinking about uh so,
Speaker 1: you know, surface certainly like these would have been individuals
Speaker 1: diving down into those cold waters of training from an
Speaker 1: early age and developing these bony protrusions that would there
Speaker 1: were then detectable um you know, you know ages later
Speaker 1: when we look back and try and figure out how
Speaker 1: they lived. So, you know, it's a little things like
Speaker 1: that that are insightful about it. But of course we're
Speaker 1: talking about the recent past. We're talking about human remain
Speaker 1: you know, almost sapiens. Is there is there a reason
Speaker 1: you brought up neandertals early on? I feel like there was. Yes,
Speaker 1: we've got a connection here, and that's because there's a
Speaker 1: very recent study and this one came from Washington University. Uh,
Speaker 1: Eric trink Us at All, author to paper External auditory
Speaker 1: exococis among Western Eurasian Late Middle and Late Pleistocene humans
Speaker 1: and this was published in p LS one. So, uh,
Speaker 1: just a refresher about the Neanderthals, who we've we've talked
Speaker 1: about on the show before and we'll continue to talk
Speaker 1: about because there's always some sort of cool Neanderthal related
Speaker 1: story coming out. Uh, they are our closest extinct relatives.
Speaker 1: They lived in Eurasia two dred thousand to thirty thousand
Speaker 1: years ago. We don't know exactly what happened to the Neanderthals.
Speaker 1: They likely transitioned from they were out likely originally transition
Speaker 1: to transition from Homo antecessor to Homo neanderthal insis a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and then they wouldn't
Speaker 1: extinct thirty thousand years ago. Now we're continuing to learn
Speaker 1: a great deal about them, how they differed from us physically,
Speaker 1: but also what their culture may have consisted of. They
Speaker 1: were ideal cold weather hominids, shorter and stockier than Homo sapiens.
Speaker 1: They had large brains, but it seems that their brains
Speaker 1: were far more suited for intense visual processing rather than
Speaker 1: social processing, which would have been needed in the lower
Speaker 1: light northern climates of Europe. Homo Sapiens, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: are ultimately the evolutionary project product of higher light regions
Speaker 1: of Africa. So enter this new study from Eric Trinkaus.
Speaker 1: At All, they examined well preserved ear canals and the
Speaker 1: remains of seventy seven ancient humans, including Neanderthals and early
Speaker 1: modern humans of the Middle too late Plistocene epoch of
Speaker 1: western Eurasia. So the rate of Homo sapiens surfer's ear
Speaker 1: was more or less standard, but half of the twenty
Speaker 1: three Neanderthals sampled had e A and their cases were
Speaker 1: mild to severe, and we're seeing it roughly twice the
Speaker 1: frequency of Homo Sapiens examples. So the obvious explanation would
Speaker 1: be that Neanderthals simply foraged in cold waters more than
Speaker 1: Homo sapiens, and that might well have been part of it.
Speaker 1: Certainly it highlights that the water, the cold waters were
Speaker 1: part of their foraging uh you know, realm. But it
Speaker 1: also could mean that they just had an even greater
Speaker 1: genetic predisposition for E A because again, humans have a
Speaker 1: pre disposition for E A. Uh, and we see that
Speaker 1: in modern human genetics as well. So here's just a
Speaker 1: quick quote from from drink House about the study. Quote
Speaker 1: and exceptionally high frequency of external auditory exotosis among Neanderthals
Speaker 1: and a more modest level among high latitude earlier Upper
Speaker 1: Paleolithic modern humans indicate a higher frequency of aquatic resource
Speaker 1: exploitation among both groups of humans than is suggested by
Speaker 1: the archaeological record. In particular, it reinforces the foraging abilities
Speaker 1: and resource diversity of the Neanderthals. Well, that's interesting. So
Speaker 1: it's saying that this is an indication that maybe humans
Speaker 1: and especially neandertals of the time, we're spending more time
Speaker 1: foraging in the water than other evidence in the archaeological
Speaker 1: record would predict. Just another example of possible evidence for
Speaker 1: for neandertal exploitation of marine resources for for food or whatever.
Speaker 1: Is A is a paper I was looking at from
Speaker 1: P and A S from two thousand and eight by Stringer.
Speaker 1: At all that found is I was looking at the
Speaker 1: Gibraltar region and the authors said that what we find
Speaker 1: indications that inertals had knowledge of the geographic distribution and
Speaker 1: behavior of their prey. We present here the evidence from
Speaker 1: Gibraltar sites showing that Middle Paleolithic humans exploited not only mollusks,
Speaker 1: but also seals, dolphins, and fish through a wide spread
Speaker 1: of time. Dolphins and seals. So we got Neanderthals of
Speaker 1: the period potentially hunting marine mammals, not quite wailing, but
Speaker 1: a modest form of marine mammal hunting. And yeah, and
Speaker 1: then in the process of doing it, developing surfers here,
Speaker 1: possibly to the point of of deafness. And and by
Speaker 1: the way, there's a there's another paper paper there was
Speaker 1: also from Drinkos from in which he and his team
Speaker 1: found an old, older Neanderthal from about fifty thousand years
Speaker 1: ago who had suffered multiple injuries and become deaf. As such,
Speaker 1: he argued that the elder must have relied on the
Speaker 1: help of others to avoid prey and survive well into
Speaker 1: his forties. So, you know, sort of like sandwiching these
Speaker 1: two separate it studies together, it like it kind of
Speaker 1: paints this picture you know of these you know, these
Speaker 1: these these Neanderthals of foraging in the cold waters, diving
Speaker 1: down for Mala's going after these uh uh, these other
Speaker 1: marine creatures, and in doing so, like the the the
Speaker 1: older members of the society, at least the ones that
Speaker 1: are that are engaged in the aquatic foraging. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: going deaf and then having to depend on other members
Speaker 1: of their society to survive. So I know you've been
Speaker 1: picturing them as Patrick Swayze the entire time. Well no,
Speaker 1: but but for some reason, when I first read the headline,
Speaker 1: like last week or the week before, my my mind
Speaker 1: instantly went to point break. It is the surfing movie.
Speaker 1: Uh par excellence. Wait what about what about Surf Ninjas.
Speaker 1: I've never seen Surf Ninjas. Can't vouch for it. I
Speaker 1: have anything. I guess we'll have to come back and
Speaker 1: check out Surf Ninjas. I just looked it up. Oh
Speaker 1: it has Rob Schneider in it. That one don't know,
Speaker 1: uh not that I can see right here unless he's
Speaker 1: a cameo. Okay, it's goott Leslie Nielsen, tone Loke, Rob Schneider,
Speaker 1: Ernie Rayas Jr. And All Star Gas. All right, well,
Speaker 1: we'll have to leave it there. But you know again,
Speaker 1: Neandertal's continue to be a topic of interest. And they're
Speaker 1: just there's always so many there are always so many
Speaker 1: great uh uh, potentially interesting studies that are coming out
Speaker 1: about them. So I'm sure we'll come back to the
Speaker 1: world of the Neanderthals in the future on Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind. In the meantime, if you want to
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: head on over to Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find our other show, Invention at invention
Speaker 1: pod dot com. Uh that's our our journey through human
Speaker 1: techno history looking at various inventions. We haven't done one
Speaker 1: on the surfboard, but that's exactly the kind of thing
Speaker 1: we could do because we try, and we've been trying
Speaker 1: to cover a wide variety of inventions, from like major
Speaker 1: recent technologies to ancient invention inventions that are lost to time,
Speaker 1: from you know, from the the advanced and the and
Speaker 1: and the to the simple, from the obvious, uh to
Speaker 1: to the far less obvious. So check out that show
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