August 27, 2019 • 37 mins
What do recent studies about surfer’s ear and neanderthals reveal about their relationship with the ocean? In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe discuss the condition and some recent findings regarding the neanderthals.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff
to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
I'm Joe McCormick. And before we turn the mics on,
or actually after we turned the mics on, but before
we officially started the episode, we were just talking about,
(00:23):
is there a better eighties action movie than Point Break? Um?
I mean, arguably there there are some definitely some action
pictures that I love more than Point Break. But Point
Break has a purity to it, you know, this like this, this,
this the weird nobility of this band of nomadic surfers
who are also bank robbers. And uh. And then the
(00:47):
man who is pursuing them, a man who must become
a surfer in order to catch surfers. Because isn't that
it meant the old saying in order to catch a surfer,
you must become a surfer. Uh, something like that. Patrick
Swayzy is the key to the movie. Oh and hey,
by the way, if you're out there some kind of
pedants saying wait a minute, Point Break didn't come out
in the nineteen eighties. How are you saying it's the
best eighties action movie. As we all know, Cinna in
(01:10):
the cinema world the nineteen eighties lasted until nine. Okay, yeah,
I think that's a solid argument. But yeah, this was
This was some some really great sways in this film,
Like sways. He just has such such a unique charisma
that he's it's it's like with with the Roadhouse. You know,
he's he's able to be just so serious in this
(01:32):
role and it's you're you're laughing because it is ridiculous,
but at the same time you're totally buying into this presentation.
He's giving you absolutely the deep seriousness in the delivery
of the lines like pain don't hurt, the fact that
he is is trying to commit to this character who's
like a philosopher bouncer in Roadhouse. Yeah, in Roadhouse, but now,
(01:55):
I mean, essentially, I think he's playing the same character
in Point Break, and that in Roadhouse he's a pill
asper bouncer. In Point Break, he's the same character. He's
now become a philosopher surfer slash bank robber. Yeah, and
and he's he's tremendous. He just like he eats that
they've seen he's in Point point Break is a great
example of one of these eighties again, but it was
(02:16):
the eighties. Eighties action movies that is so silly in
a way that like, there are still action movies that
have a great spirit of silliness that aren't like these unpleasant,
self serious action movies. Uh. You know. A good example
is like the later movies in the Fast and the
Furious franchise, which can be a lot of fun, but
they are they're in on the joke, like the rock
(02:38):
is winking at the camera. It's you know, it's played
explicitly for a kind of like wet laughter that like
cars can fly and all this, but that's not what's
going on in Point Break, Point Break, and and some
of the movies like it are just as silly as
the later Fast and the Furious movies, but they're not
they're not winking at you. They're not in on the joke. Instead,
(02:58):
they've got Patrick Swayzy who stay in himself. Real seriously,
I wonder if part of that is that a film
like Point Break like building on the in a sense,
even though it's an eighties and so technically nineties film,
it's building on like the grittier uh, like a film
heritage of the nineteen seventies that preceded it, and where
whereas nineties films are are proceeding from the eighties films,
(03:22):
uh and so forth to where there's just like the
initial groundwork underneath something like The Fast and the Furious.
It's just that much sillier and that that and just
further removed from like nineteen seventies cinema. Wait a minute,
why are we talking about Point Break? Oh? Yeah, we're
talking about it because this episode is about surfing the indertals.
I mean, it's also not about surfing neandertals, but it
(03:43):
is about neandertals. It's about surfer's ear and uh, surfing
the Andertal's the working title of Point Break that was
on the script. It it's exactly where my mind went
when I first read a very recent scientific paper the
came out about the under tolls and surfers here. But
but before we get into all that um and we
(04:05):
may come back two point break. As we proceed again,
I want to be clear that this episode is not
really about surfing. It doesn't have that much to do
with surfing, But I do want to point out the
ancient origins of this aquatic practice we call surfing. What
surfing wasn't invented in the nineteen sixties, No, no, no,
And I was looking at a couple of sources on this,
(04:26):
but but one of the better ones that came across
um was a book by Ben R. Finny and James D.
Houston called Surfing A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport.
And uh, it's pretty insightful. They point out that that
all you need really to surf is a surfer and
a board and of course waves um or something standing
in for a board, such as a canoe, or even
(04:47):
the surfer's own body. I mean, you can body surf.
What you don't need a surfballfall, you don't need a
surf suit. Well, as we'll discuss, it can be very helpful,
especially in the colder waters. Uh. You know, it's just
it's ultimately and I don't know, have you ever surfed, Joe,
Have you ever? No, I've I mean very limited water experience.
(05:09):
I've done like knee boarding, and that's I know that's
not surfing. I'd say that's the closest to that. But
you've you've gotten up on your knees on a surfboard, well,
not on a surfboard on a knee board. I don't
know how different they are. I've gotten up on my
knees on a floating thing that was being towed behind
a boat. Okay, well a little. It's not close, but
but it's it's enough. We can we can build from here.
(05:31):
So I am not a surfer, but I on a
trip to who I, um, you know, like like twenty
years ago or something. Um, I was encouraged by a
friend to go out and try it. This friend had
surfed before. This is very helpful I find if you
were going to try to surf, uh, certainly go someone
who has at least done it once before, but proverably
(05:53):
somebody who who is more skilled than that. But there
is this kind of magical moment where you're you're pushing
the board, You're you're paddling and kicking, you're just going
as hard and as fast as you can. Uh, and
then it comes this this almost magical moment where the
wave catches the board and suddenly the waves propelling the board.
And this is the point where then you can climb
(06:14):
up on onto your knees on the board. And then
then once you you know, have your figure out what
you're doing. This is where you can rise up on
both of your feet on the board and you can
ride the surfboard like a surfer rides a surfboard. And
it sounds hard. I mean, it's it's it's one of
those things where I definitely would have given up had
I not been encouraged to keep doing it, you know,
(06:36):
to just keep do it again once more. Let's let's
paddle back and then paddle as hard and fast as
you can to try and catch this magical moment when
the when the board catches you. Um yeah, and so
like once so, all you need is a board, the waves, yourself,
and then like the patience and or courage to to
reach that point where you can rise up on the
board and become comfortable enough doing so that you can
(06:57):
manipulate the bird board further. Okay, so of surfing was
not invented by the beach boys in the mid twentieth century,
Where does surfing actually come from? Well, as the authors
at this point out how Hawaii is of course strongly
associated with surfing, and humans seem to have first arrived
at these far flung Polynesian islands by between three hundred
(07:17):
and four hundred ce. Now, longboards would have developed over time,
and the author's guess that Hawaiian surfing is ultimately perhaps
a thousand years old. Yet the principles involved would have
been known to Pacific islanders and the first pioneers to
enter the Pacific as far back as two thousand b C. So, um,
(07:37):
you know, it's one of those again, it's one of
those things where the necessary technology, uh, and and and
ability you know, is not something that were It did
not exist before thousand years ago, you know, conceivably uh,
you know, these more ancient cultures knew of the properties involved.
So we don't know for sure how far back it could, right,
(08:00):
And there's also some debate whether a form of stand
up paddle boarding practiced by the pre Incan civilization in
Peru would have constituted surfing some two thousand years ago.
Of course, that's another thing you get into, you know,
discussions of the terminology. Is it truly surfing, is it's
something else? Are are the people on these paddle boards
ever reaching that point where the you know, the magic
(08:21):
of the wave takes over and propels them. But anyway,
I just I found it. It'll be useful I think
to just think of that as we proceed, uh, in
order to also keep it connected to surfing in some way.
To think of of surfing as this thing that is
at least a thousand years old, maybe older, and uh
and ultimately, just based on the technology involved, is not
all that uh, you know, constrained to a particular portion
(08:46):
of human time. For all we know dinosaurs for surfing.
Definitely dinosaurs. Well, no, the dinosaurs were not surfing. But
I mean, ultimately, to come back to the title of
the episode, when you start wondering if Neanderthals surfed, there's
that really no evidence that they did. But when you
start considering the technology involved, yes, somebody could make a
case for it, and it would be you know, you
(09:08):
wouldn't have be able to prove it necessary that we
wouldn't be able to disprove it. So what we're gonna
be talking about though in this episode is more a
matter of what is known as surfers ear. Okay, Now,
I remember from when I was a kid, people I
knew getting swimmers ear. But that was just like ear infections,
right right, Swimmers ear is is a different thing. Is
(09:30):
bacterial infection of the outer ear, often caused by trapped water,
so water or debris, it gets trapped in the ear
and it can cause an infection. And uh and depending
on like the state and condition of your your ear canals. Uh,
some people are more uh you know, have more tendants,
more a greater tendency to uh to get swimmers eer
(09:50):
than other people. I remember people with swimmers ear being
treated by just getting like ethyl alcohol pulled in there
or maybe I don't know what kind of some kind
of alcohol alcohol uh poured in their ear. Yeah, there's
just a stest standard swimmer's ear um droplets you can get.
I use some, like just the other day because I
swim fairly regularly. But uh. But but then also not
(10:13):
to be confused with the drops you would get for
a full blown ear infection. Like this is where yeah,
everything is actually getting like more and more painful in
your ear, and that may require uh, some more advanced drops.
But that's not really what we're talking about here. What
we're talking about here is exostosis of the external auditory
canal or external auditory exostosis or e a E, also
(10:36):
known as surfer's ear. And then the game, Yeah, and
it's it's a condition. It's a condition that affects both
modern humans and our our prehistoric ancestors. So what is
E A E? Well, these are dense bony growths that
that that grow that slowly extend into the auditory ear canal.
Whoa bony growths in the ear canal? Now please read
(11:00):
sure me Robert that these growths are not like spiny
you know, no, No, these are rounded growths um that
you know. Basically if you look at it, if you
look at an image of this, it looks like they're
bony growths on you know, underneath the skin on either
side that are like that are that are pushing in,
causing kind of a cave in, gradual cave in of
(11:20):
the auditory canal. That still doesn't sound good. So the
question is what causes them? Well, this is where it
gets weird. It is uh, we basically still have a
lot of questions about surfers here. But the widely accepted
hypothesis is the is the aquatic hypothesis, and that is
that it is caused by repeated exposure to cold water
(11:41):
or or in some cases cold wind, but especially cold water,
and it's typically encountered in cold watered in cold water foraging.
Among traditional and ancient peoples as well as among cold
water sports practice today, such as surfing. Coming back to
a question of what is required for surfing, and you
(12:01):
asked about body suits and wet suits or dry suits,
and uh, you know, and and a part of this
is has to do with the fact that, in addition
to having to deal with, you know, potentially being scraped
up against things you don't want your body scraped against,
you're often also surfing in colder environments and uh, and
you want to protect your body from the cold. But
(12:22):
cold water is is also an irritant to the inner
ear and uh, and it is the most commonly observed
irritant that leads to surfer's ear and repeated irritation leads
to this growth. Now, wait a minute, it sounded like
you were alluding to their being potential multiple potential explanations, right, Well,
this is I mean, well, this is the primary explanation.
(12:45):
Um and I did not encounter another explanation that that
was really presented. Basically, it's just there are some mysteries
remain about exactly how it occurs. Uh and uh. Anybody
that's discussing surfers here like is sticking to the equatic
hypothesis here, uh, and then certainly the evidence bears it
out that it's I mean, you look at at where
(13:06):
surfers here occurs, and it occurs in the ears of
individuals who are engaging in a lot of cold water activity,
be it foraging, you know, pearl diving, that sort of thing,
or surfing. But you know, other forms of irritation can
can can technically cause it, uh, because it's just gonna
result in tissue inflammation in the inner ear. Now that's
gonna happen after just like you have a couple of
(13:28):
bad days in cold water and you get these growths. No, no, no,
it's uh, this is something that's going to develop over
the years. So typically you see it manifest in a
person during their like their mid to late thirties or
possibly in their forties, lining up with the timeline of
their exposure to the irritation. It could potentially occur earlier though,
but like this is like when you think about like
(13:50):
someone's prime surfing years and at what point they've been
surfing for uh, you know, for say twenty years that
sort of thing. Uh, it's gonna line up with this,
So you're more likely to see it in people who
spend a lot of time in the water over a
long period of their lives. Right, Yeah, they're spending a
lot of time in cold water, like they're going surfing
a lot, where they're going pearl diving a lot with
(14:12):
with a uh, you know, a fair degree of regularity. Well,
so it would seem like having bony growths protruding into
your ear canal would not be a good thing. Right,
So for for the for the longest, it's not really
an issue, but you know, it'll reach the point where
you'll have potential complications from your Essentially you're closing ear canals.
That includes decreased hearing capability uh and increased likelihood of
(14:36):
blockage and infection due to trapped ear wax or debris.
And you know, you see generally you're looking at a
five to eight millimeter diameter ear canal, but this can
be narrowed to almost total blockage over time by surfers.
Ere am I imagining that there's kind of a cultural
stereotype where the you know, the the archetype, the surfer dude,
(14:58):
the surfer person uh is saying like, what would you
say A lot? Is that? Is that just my imagination
or does that exist as part of the stereotype. UM.
I mean, there's certain certainly a crossover between like the
surfer stereotype and sort of the the dude and sort
of hippie freewheeling stereotype. I don't know if lack of
(15:20):
hearing is really part of it, but it would make
sense that that it would be right because based on
what we're discussing here, I mean, this is this is
where you're going to see some potential hearing loss due
to exposure to the cold water. Now. An important thing
to stress though, is that we only discovered surfers here
in the last century or so. I believe the first
report on it was a German paper by Welker h
(15:42):
Uber in eighteen sixty four. And uh, and so you know,
we haven't had that long to like really study it
and figure out what's what the deal is with it,
or even to figure out how, you know, ways to
treat it or how to to prevent it. But the
most obvious ways to prevent it are, of course, to
avoid regular cold water activities, UM, which may not be
(16:03):
an option or or desirable for you if if you're
really into surfing or you depend on some sort of
cold water foraging. But I've read that cold water surfers
are six more likely to experience it than warm water surfers,
and sounds like a significant effect. Now, you can also
wear varying forms of ear protection that will help, ranging
(16:25):
from special plugs to cat special caps to go over
your head in your ear, to certain varieties of wet suits.
But if you reach the point where where the bony
protrusions have grown to the point that it's an issue,
doctors can also remove the expoptosis with a surgical drill there.
I think two different procedures, two different ways of going
(16:46):
in there and drilling back the bone the bony growths.
And the good news is that if if you have
this done, you'll probably you really probably only have to
do it once because generally, given the timeline of of
them growing back, they can grow act, but you probably
won't reach that second point where you'll need to have
them removed. All right, looks like we need to take
a break, But when we come back, we will ask
(17:07):
the question of why the these spurs and the ears?
All right, we're back. All right, So we've been talking
about surfer's ear, or the idea of external auditory exostoses
or E A E. And these are these bone like
protrusions into the ear canal that seemed to pop up
in people who spend a lot of their lives in
(17:29):
cold water. If you're constantly irritating the ear canal with
cold water, these things are likely to pop up. Now,
I guess we haven't addressed yet why they occur. Well,
if you'll think back to the Bible, you have Cane
and Able and uh Able you know was was really
into staying on the land. Cane was a big surfer,
(17:51):
So God punish it now. Um has nothing to do
with that. Now, Now this is another area where it's
there's still a lot of open questions about it now,
so some are you it's essentially like bone spurs, you know,
which these occur either due to these occur you know,
due to constant irritation or stress, generally in the feet
where you have these bony um. You know, protrusions that
(18:13):
are forming in the foot could be quite painful. So
one idea is that it's basically that irritation leading to
growth leading to symptoms. And there's not a lot else
beyond that in terms of why, Like what is the reason,
you know, because it's like asking what is what is
the reason for bone spurs? What is you know, what
are the reason for for various ailments that afflict us
(18:35):
due to the things that we insist on doing due
to our you know, our our human desire to to
ride waves or climb mountains to ridiculous heights, that sort
of thing. But there is one area where you will
see an argument for a purpose behind all that. Unfortunately,
it's in aquatic eight theory. Oh yeah, So aquatic ape
(18:57):
theory has come up on the show before, and I
think we've talked about how this is one of those
theories that's like that's sticky. It's sticky beyond its explanatory power.
And it's hard to know exactly why some some hypotheses
are like this, but I think it tends to be
the ones that are just the most uh, that offered
(19:19):
the most totalizing explanation for the most phenomena through the
most interesting image. And it does that. It but it
is also widely rejected by science. Yeah, and we can
talk about some reasons for that in a minute. Yeah,
but it does continue to come up, and you know,
in fact, it was it was recently it brought up
and by none other than Sir David Attenborough himself. No,
(19:42):
he apparently on a BBC four um series he talked
about it and he there's something that criticized him for,
you know, bringing up, you know, a redundant scientific theory. Well,
I'm not gonna slam. I mean, you know, we talk
about theories that are not accepted because you know, it's
okay to talk about things. I agree, Yeah, you don't
have to think something is correct to talk about it.
(20:03):
But it sounds like he was sort of advocating it. Well,
I mean, he has a history of being interested in it.
I read that he also organized the symposium on the
topic back in But you know, it's like you said,
we discuss theories and hypotheses on this show that that
are you know, sometimes definitely under the category of of
rejected or unprovable. Uh. And I think my my opinion
(20:27):
is that it is okay to discuss these It's informative
to discuss these ideas, you know, as long as you're
approaching them with the right attitude and you're not like,
you know, you're not seeking to to prove them, you know,
in in your discussion of the of of of what
is unprovable, right, You're not becoming an evangelist for something
based on bad evidence. Uh. Now, So for a brief
(20:50):
refresh in case you don't recall us talking about this
theory in the past, the short version is, I think
that the original idea was that in nineteen sixty a
marine biologist named Alistair already proposed this idea that we
had an aquatic primate ancestor maybe four to seven million
years ago, and he proposed this in this article a
(21:10):
new scientist. I think he also gave a big talk
about this. I think the idea is that us having
a an aquatic or semi aquatic primate ancestor could explain
many interesting morphological features of humans that distinguish us from
our closest relatives like the other great apes. And there
are a lot of examples of this, like why do
we have less body hair than the other great apes?
(21:33):
Why do we have this, you know, smoother skin. And
his idea was, well, maybe we lost body hair and
got smooth skin to streamline us for swimming, to reduce
drag in the water. Um, why do we have a
thicker layer of subcutaneous fat uh than some of the
other than I think all the other great apes, and
his idea here is, well, maybe that's like what we
see in marine mammals that they use for water insulation
(21:55):
to help keep their bodies warm. Why do we stand
upright instead of walking on all fours. The ideas well,
maybe we had to wade in the shallows and that
got us standing up. And while it is an interesting idea,
and I think you know Hardy it was it was
clever for Hardy to come up with this. I think
we now have better explanations for a lot of these
interesting differences between humans and the other gray apes. And
(22:18):
there's also no direct physical evidence for the aquatic ape theory.
But to bring it back to the context here is this.
You're saying that some enthusiasts of the aquatic ape theory
would believe that our ear canals or features of our
ear canals would seem to fit in with that list
of supposed aquatic adaptations. Yeah, I've read e a positioned
(22:39):
as possible evidence. You know that it's a narrowing of
the ear canals and keeping with the narrowing of ear
canals and aquatic mammals, because true enough, the ear canals
and toothed whales are narrow and clogged with debris and wax.
In baileeen whale ear canals are plugged with a waxy cap. Now,
you know, they're obvious problems with this because it's not like,
(23:00):
you know, there's not some sort of Lamarchian scenario going
on here where surfers starts surfing and then their ears
mutate into into weird forms. It's not like the children
of surfers have have permanently plugged ear holes or anything.
But maybe the idea would be that we evolved the
the adaptation that gives our bodies the capability to adapt
(23:22):
to repeated water exploit or or we would have developed
the genetic predisposition for for surfers here, and we do
have a genetic predisposition for surfers here. Uh that that's
that seems to be the case. But um, I think
it's it's a stretch to tie it in with this
(23:43):
uh largely refuted theory. Yeah, well, I mean I want
to say again, not that we accept the theory or
would advocate it, but in the defense of this theory,
I mean, it is interesting to consider, and there's nothing
inherently implausible about the situation. It imagines no nor insidious.
It's not like an anti science theory, right, right, right,
(24:05):
It's just so there's nothing implausible about like prehistoric primates
migrating to a partially aquatic lifestyle and gaining biological adaptations
in the process. It happened with other mammals, right, so
it's not hard to believe that a similar thing could have,
in principle happened with primates. But the question is, just
is that what the evidence we have today's supports, And
(24:27):
I think most experts, for good reasons, think the answer
is no. U. Most experts today believe the evidence for
humans having an aquatic ape ancestor doesn't hold up very well. Again,
there's zero direct evidence of it, so we don't have
like remains of an aquatic ancestor that just doesn't exist.
So you're you're having to hypothesize a sort of like
(24:47):
lost period that we haven't found direct evidence of yet,
but just reason backwards from traits that exist later. But
there's a basic question here. I can't I came across
this on from the writings of some paleo anthropologists, and
I'm sorry now I'm forgetting the the person's name. But
here here's the basic answer. If all these traits that
(25:09):
are they're trying to explain through the aquatic ape theory
were acquired through an aquatic lifestyle that happened maybe four
to seven million years ago, why were all the aquatic
traits retained for millions of years after our ancestors supposedly
moved back to dry land. You would you would expect,
like then that these traits would be lost because now
(25:30):
they'd be vestigil. Yeah, we'd grow all that lovely hair back,
unless you pose it like, well, actually, it turned out
once you moved back on the land, there was a
good reason for retaining that trait. Now now it stayed
because it served some other survival purpose. But then you
could just short circuit the aquatic ape situation and say, well,
maybe we just got those traits because it served some
(25:52):
other purpose. So, like, like coming back to the the
hair theory of like the less hair you have, the
more you're able to show off that parasite free skin. Right,
that's a common theory. I mean, so there are a
couple of major theories that exist now to explain why
humans ancestors lost a lot of the body hair they
originally had, and we don't know the answer but some
fairly plausible answers seem to be that that it helped
(26:15):
with with heat dispersal uh, and that it was maybe
a very good sexual selection signal. It it showed off,
I don't have any lice on me because look how
little hair I have. And it turns out that I
think there are better explanations like that, And again we
don't know them for sure, but they seem like very plausible,
fitting with the evidence, explanations for all of these traits
(26:36):
that are answered through the aquatic ape theory. So why
do we stand up on two legs? We don't know
the answer, but a good candidate for that seems to
be that we were using our hands for things we
adapted to have to want to have free hands uh
and other things like Oh. A common one that's cited
for the aquatic ap hypothesis is that why do we
have voluntary control over our breath? Right? We wouldn't need
(26:59):
that less we were trying to be able to dive
underwater to get you know, marine mollusks or something is prey.
But what if we evolved voluntary control of the breath
because we needed to speak right, to speak to seeing,
you know, to to communicate with each other with each other,
that these are activities that require control of breath. Yeah, so,
(27:20):
I guess my main takeaway is that, you know, I
don't want to slam aquatic ape too hard. It's not
like an odious theory or something. It's just that I
think it's something that is. It's unfortunately sticky, and there
are better hypotheses more in line with the actual evidence.
We have to explain the same morphological features that people
appeal to the aquatic ape theory to explain. All right, well,
(27:41):
on that note, let's take one more break. But when
we come back, we will we'll get to some more
good stuff discussing surfer's ear in human remains but also
in the remains of Neanderthals. Thank alright, we're back. So
I think all this stuff about surfer's ear is fascinating
in and of itself. But the the extra cool thing
here is that surfer's ear is detectable in human remains, right,
(28:03):
because it's not just soft flesh. They're like bony protroser. Yes,
so we can we can look to coastal humans of
the past and judge to what degree they were interacting
with cold water, and then we can also based on that,
determine how such acts were divided between the genders based
on the skeletal remains. For instance, in December of researchers
(28:26):
from Washington University in St. Louis discovered skeletal evidence of
surfer's ear in a pre Columbian Panamanian village. They were
looking at a hundred and twenty five skulls from nine
burial sites, and they found seven cases in males, one
in female. So this is this is interesting. You think
of Panama and you think of you You You may think
of warmer waters, but the water in the Gulf of
(28:48):
Panama is actually quite cold between January and April. And
the researchers believe that the divers here, that the remains
that they found were likely specialized pearl divers UH probably
going after stuff like like mother of pearl or um
or the orange and purple pearls that derived from two
species of thorny oysters. These were These were popular in
(29:08):
the region and you also find these artifacts among the
very dead in these grave sites. Also, Spanish explorers would
later record the activities of such pearl divers as well
as you know, staying there. They were trained since childhood
to dive down four fathoms that's twenty four ft or
seven point three meters deep. My ears are hurt and
(29:29):
just thinking about that. Uh. So you know, surface certainly
like these would have been individuals diving down into those
cold waters of training from an early age and developing
these bony protrusions that would that were then detectable. Um
you know, you know ages later when we look back
and try and figure out how they lived. So you know,
it's a little things like that that are insightful about it.
(29:50):
But of course we're talking about the recent past. We're
talking about human remain you know, Almo Sapiens, is there
is there a reason you brought up Neandertells early on.
I feel like, yes, we've got a connection here, and
that's because there's a very recent study and this one
came from Washington University. Uh, Eric trink Us at All,
author to paper External auditory exostosis among Western Eurasian late
(30:16):
Middle and Late Pleistocene humans, and this was published in
Plos one. So, uh, just a refresher about the Neanderthals
who we've we've talked about on the show before and
we'll continue to talk about because there's always some sort
of cool Neanderthal related story coming out. Uh. They are
our closest extinct relatives. They lived in Eurasia two hundred
(30:36):
thousand to thirty thousand years ago. We don't know exactly
what happened to the Neanderthals. They likely transitioned from they
were out likely originally translition transition from Homo antecessor to
Homo neanderthal insis a hundred and fifty thousand years ago,
and then they went extinct thirty thousand years ago. Now
(30:56):
we're continuing to learn a great deal about them, how
they differed from a physically, but also what their culture
may have consisted of. They were ideal cold weather hominids,
shorter and stockier than Homo sapiens. They had large brains,
but it seems that their brains were were far more
suited for intense visual processing rather than social processing, which
(31:17):
would have been needed in the lower light northern climates
of Europe. Homo sapiens, on the other hand, are ultimately
the evolutionary project product of higher light regions of Africa.
So enter this new study from Eric Trinkaus. At All,
they examined well preserved ear canals and the remains of
seventy seven ancient humans, including Neanderthals and early modern humans
(31:41):
of the Middle too late Plicetocene epoch of western Eurasia.
So the rate of Homo Sapiens surfers ear was more
or less standard. But half of the twenty three Neanderthals
sampled had E A and their cases were mild to severe,
and we're seeing at roughly twice us the frequency of
Homo Sapiens examples. So the obvious explanation would be that
(32:05):
Neanderthals simply foraged in cold waters more than Homo sapiens,
and that might well have been part of it. Certainly
it highlights that the water, the cold waters were part
of their foraging, uh, you know, realm. But it also
could mean that they just had an even greater genetic
predisposition for E A. Because again, humans have a pre
(32:26):
disposition for E A. Uh, and we we see that
in modern human genetics as well. So here's just a
quick quote from from drink House about the study. Quote.
An exceptionally high frequency of external auditory exotosis among Neanderthals
and a more modest level among high latitude earlier Upper Paleolithic,
(32:47):
modern humans indicate a higher frequency of aquatic resource exploitation
among both groups of humans than is suggested by the
archaeological record. In particular, it reinforces the foraging abilities and
resource diversity of the Neanderthals. Well, that's interesting. So it's
saying that this is an indication that maybe humans and
(33:07):
especially Neanderthals of the time, we're spending more time foraging
in the water than other evidence in the archaeological record
would predict. Just another example of possible evidence for for
Neanderthal exploitation of marine resources for for food or whatever.
Is A is a paper I was looking at from
P and A s from two thousand and eight by
(33:28):
Stringer at all that found is I was looking at
the Gibraltar region and the authors said that what we
find indications that Neanderthals had knowledge of the geographic distribution
and behavior of their prey. We present here the evidence
from Gibraltar sites showing that Middle Paleolithic humans exploited not
only mollusks, but also seals, dolphins, and fish through a
(33:51):
wide spread of time. Dolphins and seals. So we got
Neanderthals of the period potentially hunting marine mammals. Not quite wailing,
but a modest form of marine mammal hunting. And yeah,
and then in the process of doing it, developing surfers
here possibly to the point of of deafness. And and
by the way, there's a there's another paper and paper.
(34:13):
It was also from drink Us from Seen, in which
he and his team found an old, older Neanderthal from
about fifty thousand years ago who had suffered multiple injuries
and become deaf. As such, he argued that the elder
must have relied on the help of others to avoid
prey and survive well into his forties. So, you know,
(34:35):
sort of like sandwiching these two separate studies together, it
like it kind of paints this picture, you know, of
these you know, these these these Neanderthals of foraging in
the cold waters, diving down for mala's, going after these
uh uh, these other marine creatures, and in doing so,
like the the the older members of the society, at
(34:55):
least the ones that are that are engaged in the
aquatic foraging, uh you know, going death and then having
to depend on other members of their society to survive.
So I know you've been picturing them as Patrick Swayze,
the entire time. Well no, but but for some reason,
when I first read the headline, like last week or
the week before, my my mind instantly went to point break.
(35:17):
It is the surfing movie. Uh par excellence. Wait what
about what about Surf Ninja's. I've never seen Surf Ninjas
can't vouch for it, I have anything. I guess we'll
have to come back and check out Surf ninja Is.
I just looked it up. Oh it has Rob Schneider
in it. One don't know, uh not that I can
see right here, and unletus he's a cameo. Okay, it's
(35:38):
goot Leslie Nielsen, tone Loke, Rob Schneider, Ernie Reyes Jr.
And All Star Gas. All right, well we'll have to
leave it there. But you know again, Neanderthal's continue to
be a topic of interest, and they're just there's always
so many. There are always so many great, uh potentially
interesting studies that are coming out about them. So I'm
(35:58):
sure we'll come back to the world at the end
at Alls in the future on Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
In the meantime, if you want to check out other
episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over
to Stuff to blow your Mind dot com. You can
also find our other show, Invention at invention pod dot com. UH.
That's our our journey through human techno history looking at
various inventions. We haven't done one on the surfboard, but
(36:19):
that's exactly the kind of thing we could do because
we try, and we've been trying to cover a wide
variety of inventions, from like major recent technologies to ancient
in inventions that are lost to time, from you know,
from the the advanced and the and and the to
the simple, from the obvious, uh, to the to the
far less obvious. So check out that show if you
(36:40):
haven't already, and if you want to support these shows
that we're putting together for you, the best thing you
can do is tell your friends about us. Wherever you
get the podcast, rate and review us, leave us some
stars and a nice comment that helps us out a lot.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Maya Cole.
If you'd like to get in touch with us with
feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic
(37:00):
for the future, just to say hello, you can email
us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart
Radios How stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(37:23):
listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you welcome to Stuff
to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
I'm Joe McCormick. And before we turn the mics on,
or actually after we turned the mics on, but before
we officially started the episode, we were just talking about,
(00:23):
is there a better eighties action movie than Point Break? Um?
I mean, arguably there there are some definitely some action
pictures that I love more than Point Break. But Point
Break has a purity to it, you know, this like this, this,
this the weird nobility of this band of nomadic surfers
who are also bank robbers. And uh. And then the
(00:47):
man who is pursuing them, a man who must become
a surfer in order to catch surfers. Because isn't that
it meant the old saying in order to catch a surfer,
you must become a surfer. Uh, something like that. Patrick
Swayzy is the key to the movie. Oh and hey,
by the way, if you're out there some kind of
pedants saying wait a minute, Point Break didn't come out
in the nineteen eighties. How are you saying it's the
best eighties action movie. As we all know, Cinna in
(01:10):
the cinema world the nineteen eighties lasted until nine. Okay, yeah,
I think that's a solid argument. But yeah, this was
This was some some really great sways in this film,
Like sways. He just has such such a unique charisma
that he's it's it's like with with the Roadhouse. You know,
he's he's able to be just so serious in this
(01:32):
role and it's you're you're laughing because it is ridiculous,
but at the same time you're totally buying into this presentation.
He's giving you absolutely the deep seriousness in the delivery
of the lines like pain don't hurt, the fact that
he is is trying to commit to this character who's
like a philosopher bouncer in Roadhouse. Yeah, in Roadhouse, but now,
(01:55):
I mean, essentially, I think he's playing the same character
in Point Break, and that in Roadhouse he's a pill
asper bouncer. In Point Break, he's the same character. He's
now become a philosopher surfer slash bank robber. Yeah, and
and he's he's tremendous. He just like he eats that
they've seen he's in Point point Break is a great
example of one of these eighties again, but it was
(02:16):
the eighties. Eighties action movies that is so silly in
a way that like, there are still action movies that
have a great spirit of silliness that aren't like these unpleasant,
self serious action movies. Uh. You know. A good example
is like the later movies in the Fast and the
Furious franchise, which can be a lot of fun, but
they are they're in on the joke, like the rock
(02:38):
is winking at the camera. It's you know, it's played
explicitly for a kind of like wet laughter that like
cars can fly and all this, but that's not what's
going on in Point Break, Point Break, and and some
of the movies like it are just as silly as
the later Fast and the Furious movies, but they're not
they're not winking at you. They're not in on the joke. Instead,
(02:58):
they've got Patrick Swayzy who stay in himself. Real seriously,
I wonder if part of that is that a film
like Point Break like building on the in a sense,
even though it's an eighties and so technically nineties film,
it's building on like the grittier uh, like a film
heritage of the nineteen seventies that preceded it, and where
whereas nineties films are are proceeding from the eighties films,
(03:22):
uh and so forth to where there's just like the
initial groundwork underneath something like The Fast and the Furious.
It's just that much sillier and that that and just
further removed from like nineteen seventies cinema. Wait a minute,
why are we talking about Point Break? Oh? Yeah, we're
talking about it because this episode is about surfing the indertals.
I mean, it's also not about surfing neandertals, but it
(03:43):
is about neandertals. It's about surfer's ear and uh, surfing
the Andertal's the working title of Point Break that was
on the script. It it's exactly where my mind went
when I first read a very recent scientific paper the
came out about the under tolls and surfers here. But
but before we get into all that um and we
(04:05):
may come back two point break. As we proceed again,
I want to be clear that this episode is not
really about surfing. It doesn't have that much to do
with surfing, But I do want to point out the
ancient origins of this aquatic practice we call surfing. What
surfing wasn't invented in the nineteen sixties, No, no, no,
And I was looking at a couple of sources on this,
(04:26):
but but one of the better ones that came across
um was a book by Ben R. Finny and James D.
Houston called Surfing A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport.
And uh, it's pretty insightful. They point out that that
all you need really to surf is a surfer and
a board and of course waves um or something standing
in for a board, such as a canoe, or even
(04:47):
the surfer's own body. I mean, you can body surf.
What you don't need a surfballfall, you don't need a
surf suit. Well, as we'll discuss, it can be very helpful,
especially in the colder waters. Uh. You know, it's just
it's ultimately and I don't know, have you ever surfed, Joe,
Have you ever? No, I've I mean very limited water experience.
(05:09):
I've done like knee boarding, and that's I know that's
not surfing. I'd say that's the closest to that. But
you've you've gotten up on your knees on a surfboard, well,
not on a surfboard on a knee board. I don't
know how different they are. I've gotten up on my
knees on a floating thing that was being towed behind
a boat. Okay, well a little. It's not close, but
but it's it's enough. We can we can build from here.
(05:31):
So I am not a surfer, but I on a
trip to who I, um, you know, like like twenty
years ago or something. Um, I was encouraged by a
friend to go out and try it. This friend had
surfed before. This is very helpful I find if you
were going to try to surf, uh, certainly go someone
who has at least done it once before, but proverably
(05:53):
somebody who who is more skilled than that. But there
is this kind of magical moment where you're you're pushing
the board, You're you're paddling and kicking, you're just going
as hard and as fast as you can. Uh, and
then it comes this this almost magical moment where the
wave catches the board and suddenly the waves propelling the board.
And this is the point where then you can climb
(06:14):
up on onto your knees on the board. And then
then once you you know, have your figure out what
you're doing. This is where you can rise up on
both of your feet on the board and you can
ride the surfboard like a surfer rides a surfboard. And
it sounds hard. I mean, it's it's it's one of
those things where I definitely would have given up had
I not been encouraged to keep doing it, you know,
(06:36):
to just keep do it again once more. Let's let's
paddle back and then paddle as hard and fast as
you can to try and catch this magical moment when
the when the board catches you. Um yeah, and so
like once so, all you need is a board, the waves, yourself,
and then like the patience and or courage to to
reach that point where you can rise up on the
board and become comfortable enough doing so that you can
(06:57):
manipulate the bird board further. Okay, so of surfing was
not invented by the beach boys in the mid twentieth century,
Where does surfing actually come from? Well, as the authors
at this point out how Hawaii is of course strongly
associated with surfing, and humans seem to have first arrived
at these far flung Polynesian islands by between three hundred
(07:17):
and four hundred ce. Now, longboards would have developed over time,
and the author's guess that Hawaiian surfing is ultimately perhaps
a thousand years old. Yet the principles involved would have
been known to Pacific islanders and the first pioneers to
enter the Pacific as far back as two thousand b C. So, um,
(07:37):
you know, it's one of those again, it's one of
those things where the necessary technology, uh, and and and
ability you know, is not something that were It did
not exist before thousand years ago, you know, conceivably uh,
you know, these more ancient cultures knew of the properties involved.
So we don't know for sure how far back it could, right,
(08:00):
And there's also some debate whether a form of stand
up paddle boarding practiced by the pre Incan civilization in
Peru would have constituted surfing some two thousand years ago.
Of course, that's another thing you get into, you know,
discussions of the terminology. Is it truly surfing, is it's
something else? Are are the people on these paddle boards
ever reaching that point where the you know, the magic
(08:21):
of the wave takes over and propels them. But anyway,
I just I found it. It'll be useful I think
to just think of that as we proceed, uh, in
order to also keep it connected to surfing in some way.
To think of of surfing as this thing that is
at least a thousand years old, maybe older, and uh
and ultimately, just based on the technology involved, is not
all that uh, you know, constrained to a particular portion
(08:46):
of human time. For all we know dinosaurs for surfing.
Definitely dinosaurs. Well, no, the dinosaurs were not surfing. But
I mean, ultimately, to come back to the title of
the episode, when you start wondering if Neanderthals surfed, there's
that really no evidence that they did. But when you
start considering the technology involved, yes, somebody could make a
case for it, and it would be you know, you
(09:08):
wouldn't have be able to prove it necessary that we
wouldn't be able to disprove it. So what we're gonna
be talking about though in this episode is more a
matter of what is known as surfers ear. Okay, Now,
I remember from when I was a kid, people I
knew getting swimmers ear. But that was just like ear infections,
right right, Swimmers ear is is a different thing. Is
(09:30):
bacterial infection of the outer ear, often caused by trapped water,
so water or debris, it gets trapped in the ear
and it can cause an infection. And uh and depending
on like the state and condition of your your ear canals. Uh,
some people are more uh you know, have more tendants,
more a greater tendency to uh to get swimmers eer
(09:50):
than other people. I remember people with swimmers ear being
treated by just getting like ethyl alcohol pulled in there
or maybe I don't know what kind of some kind
of alcohol alcohol uh poured in their ear. Yeah, there's
just a stest standard swimmer's ear um droplets you can get.
I use some, like just the other day because I
swim fairly regularly. But uh. But but then also not
(10:13):
to be confused with the drops you would get for
a full blown ear infection. Like this is where yeah,
everything is actually getting like more and more painful in
your ear, and that may require uh, some more advanced drops.
But that's not really what we're talking about here. What
we're talking about here is exostosis of the external auditory
canal or external auditory exostosis or e a E, also
(10:36):
known as surfer's ear. And then the game, Yeah, and
it's it's a condition. It's a condition that affects both
modern humans and our our prehistoric ancestors. So what is
E A E? Well, these are dense bony growths that
that that grow that slowly extend into the auditory ear canal.
Whoa bony growths in the ear canal? Now please read
(11:00):
sure me Robert that these growths are not like spiny
you know, no, No, these are rounded growths um that
you know. Basically if you look at it, if you
look at an image of this, it looks like they're
bony growths on you know, underneath the skin on either
side that are like that are that are pushing in,
causing kind of a cave in, gradual cave in of
(11:20):
the auditory canal. That still doesn't sound good. So the
question is what causes them? Well, this is where it
gets weird. It is uh, we basically still have a
lot of questions about surfers here. But the widely accepted
hypothesis is the is the aquatic hypothesis, and that is
that it is caused by repeated exposure to cold water
(11:41):
or or in some cases cold wind, but especially cold water,
and it's typically encountered in cold watered in cold water foraging.
Among traditional and ancient peoples as well as among cold
water sports practice today, such as surfing. Coming back to
a question of what is required for surfing, and you
(12:01):
asked about body suits and wet suits or dry suits,
and uh, you know, and and a part of this
is has to do with the fact that, in addition
to having to deal with, you know, potentially being scraped
up against things you don't want your body scraped against,
you're often also surfing in colder environments and uh, and
you want to protect your body from the cold. But
(12:22):
cold water is is also an irritant to the inner
ear and uh, and it is the most commonly observed
irritant that leads to surfer's ear and repeated irritation leads
to this growth. Now, wait a minute, it sounded like
you were alluding to their being potential multiple potential explanations, right, Well,
this is I mean, well, this is the primary explanation.
(12:45):
Um and I did not encounter another explanation that that
was really presented. Basically, it's just there are some mysteries
remain about exactly how it occurs. Uh and uh. Anybody
that's discussing surfers here like is sticking to the equatic
hypothesis here, uh, and then certainly the evidence bears it
out that it's I mean, you look at at where
(13:06):
surfers here occurs, and it occurs in the ears of
individuals who are engaging in a lot of cold water activity,
be it foraging, you know, pearl diving, that sort of thing,
or surfing. But you know, other forms of irritation can
can can technically cause it, uh, because it's just gonna
result in tissue inflammation in the inner ear. Now that's
gonna happen after just like you have a couple of
(13:28):
bad days in cold water and you get these growths. No, no, no,
it's uh, this is something that's going to develop over
the years. So typically you see it manifest in a
person during their like their mid to late thirties or
possibly in their forties, lining up with the timeline of
their exposure to the irritation. It could potentially occur earlier though,
but like this is like when you think about like
(13:50):
someone's prime surfing years and at what point they've been
surfing for uh, you know, for say twenty years that
sort of thing. Uh, it's gonna line up with this,
So you're more likely to see it in people who
spend a lot of time in the water over a
long period of their lives. Right, Yeah, they're spending a
lot of time in cold water, like they're going surfing
a lot, where they're going pearl diving a lot with
(14:12):
with a uh, you know, a fair degree of regularity. Well,
so it would seem like having bony growths protruding into
your ear canal would not be a good thing. Right,
So for for the for the longest, it's not really
an issue, but you know, it'll reach the point where
you'll have potential complications from your Essentially you're closing ear canals.
That includes decreased hearing capability uh and increased likelihood of
(14:36):
blockage and infection due to trapped ear wax or debris.
And you know, you see generally you're looking at a
five to eight millimeter diameter ear canal, but this can
be narrowed to almost total blockage over time by surfers.
Ere am I imagining that there's kind of a cultural
stereotype where the you know, the the archetype, the surfer dude,
(14:58):
the surfer person uh is saying like, what would you
say A lot? Is that? Is that just my imagination
or does that exist as part of the stereotype. UM.
I mean, there's certain certainly a crossover between like the
surfer stereotype and sort of the the dude and sort
of hippie freewheeling stereotype. I don't know if lack of
(15:20):
hearing is really part of it, but it would make
sense that that it would be right because based on
what we're discussing here, I mean, this is this is
where you're going to see some potential hearing loss due
to exposure to the cold water. Now. An important thing
to stress though, is that we only discovered surfers here
in the last century or so. I believe the first
report on it was a German paper by Welker h
(15:42):
Uber in eighteen sixty four. And uh, and so you know,
we haven't had that long to like really study it
and figure out what's what the deal is with it,
or even to figure out how, you know, ways to
treat it or how to to prevent it. But the
most obvious ways to prevent it are, of course, to
avoid regular cold water activities, UM, which may not be
(16:03):
an option or or desirable for you if if you're
really into surfing or you depend on some sort of
cold water foraging. But I've read that cold water surfers
are six more likely to experience it than warm water surfers,
and sounds like a significant effect. Now, you can also
wear varying forms of ear protection that will help, ranging
(16:25):
from special plugs to cat special caps to go over
your head in your ear, to certain varieties of wet suits.
But if you reach the point where where the bony
protrusions have grown to the point that it's an issue,
doctors can also remove the expoptosis with a surgical drill there.
I think two different procedures, two different ways of going
(16:46):
in there and drilling back the bone the bony growths.
And the good news is that if if you have
this done, you'll probably you really probably only have to
do it once because generally, given the timeline of of
them growing back, they can grow act, but you probably
won't reach that second point where you'll need to have
them removed. All right, looks like we need to take
a break, But when we come back, we will ask
(17:07):
the question of why the these spurs and the ears?
All right, we're back. All right, So we've been talking
about surfer's ear, or the idea of external auditory exostoses
or E A E. And these are these bone like
protrusions into the ear canal that seemed to pop up
in people who spend a lot of their lives in
(17:29):
cold water. If you're constantly irritating the ear canal with
cold water, these things are likely to pop up. Now,
I guess we haven't addressed yet why they occur. Well,
if you'll think back to the Bible, you have Cane
and Able and uh Able you know was was really
into staying on the land. Cane was a big surfer,
(17:51):
So God punish it now. Um has nothing to do
with that. Now, Now this is another area where it's
there's still a lot of open questions about it now,
so some are you it's essentially like bone spurs, you know,
which these occur either due to these occur you know,
due to constant irritation or stress, generally in the feet
where you have these bony um. You know, protrusions that
(18:13):
are forming in the foot could be quite painful. So
one idea is that it's basically that irritation leading to
growth leading to symptoms. And there's not a lot else
beyond that in terms of why, Like what is the reason,
you know, because it's like asking what is what is
the reason for bone spurs? What is you know, what
are the reason for for various ailments that afflict us
(18:35):
due to the things that we insist on doing due
to our you know, our our human desire to to
ride waves or climb mountains to ridiculous heights, that sort
of thing. But there is one area where you will
see an argument for a purpose behind all that. Unfortunately,
it's in aquatic eight theory. Oh yeah, So aquatic ape
(18:57):
theory has come up on the show before, and I
think we've talked about how this is one of those
theories that's like that's sticky. It's sticky beyond its explanatory power.
And it's hard to know exactly why some some hypotheses
are like this, but I think it tends to be
the ones that are just the most uh, that offered
(19:19):
the most totalizing explanation for the most phenomena through the
most interesting image. And it does that. It but it
is also widely rejected by science. Yeah, and we can
talk about some reasons for that in a minute. Yeah,
but it does continue to come up, and you know,
in fact, it was it was recently it brought up
and by none other than Sir David Attenborough himself. No,
(19:42):
he apparently on a BBC four um series he talked
about it and he there's something that criticized him for,
you know, bringing up, you know, a redundant scientific theory. Well,
I'm not gonna slam. I mean, you know, we talk
about theories that are not accepted because you know, it's
okay to talk about things. I agree, Yeah, you don't
have to think something is correct to talk about it.
(20:03):
But it sounds like he was sort of advocating it. Well,
I mean, he has a history of being interested in it.
I read that he also organized the symposium on the
topic back in But you know, it's like you said,
we discuss theories and hypotheses on this show that that
are you know, sometimes definitely under the category of of
rejected or unprovable. Uh. And I think my my opinion
(20:27):
is that it is okay to discuss these It's informative
to discuss these ideas, you know, as long as you're
approaching them with the right attitude and you're not like,
you know, you're not seeking to to prove them, you know,
in in your discussion of the of of of what
is unprovable, right, You're not becoming an evangelist for something
based on bad evidence. Uh. Now, So for a brief
(20:50):
refresh in case you don't recall us talking about this
theory in the past, the short version is, I think
that the original idea was that in nineteen sixty a
marine biologist named Alistair already proposed this idea that we
had an aquatic primate ancestor maybe four to seven million
years ago, and he proposed this in this article a
(21:10):
new scientist. I think he also gave a big talk
about this. I think the idea is that us having
a an aquatic or semi aquatic primate ancestor could explain
many interesting morphological features of humans that distinguish us from
our closest relatives like the other great apes. And there
are a lot of examples of this, like why do
we have less body hair than the other great apes?
(21:33):
Why do we have this, you know, smoother skin. And
his idea was, well, maybe we lost body hair and
got smooth skin to streamline us for swimming, to reduce
drag in the water. Um, why do we have a
thicker layer of subcutaneous fat uh than some of the
other than I think all the other great apes, and
his idea here is, well, maybe that's like what we
see in marine mammals that they use for water insulation
(21:55):
to help keep their bodies warm. Why do we stand
upright instead of walking on all fours. The ideas well,
maybe we had to wade in the shallows and that
got us standing up. And while it is an interesting idea,
and I think you know Hardy it was it was
clever for Hardy to come up with this. I think
we now have better explanations for a lot of these
interesting differences between humans and the other gray apes. And
(22:18):
there's also no direct physical evidence for the aquatic ape theory.
But to bring it back to the context here is this.
You're saying that some enthusiasts of the aquatic ape theory
would believe that our ear canals or features of our
ear canals would seem to fit in with that list
of supposed aquatic adaptations. Yeah, I've read e a positioned
(22:39):
as possible evidence. You know that it's a narrowing of
the ear canals and keeping with the narrowing of ear
canals and aquatic mammals, because true enough, the ear canals
and toothed whales are narrow and clogged with debris and wax.
In baileeen whale ear canals are plugged with a waxy cap. Now,
you know, they're obvious problems with this because it's not like,
(23:00):
you know, there's not some sort of Lamarchian scenario going
on here where surfers starts surfing and then their ears
mutate into into weird forms. It's not like the children
of surfers have have permanently plugged ear holes or anything.
But maybe the idea would be that we evolved the
the adaptation that gives our bodies the capability to adapt
(23:22):
to repeated water exploit or or we would have developed
the genetic predisposition for for surfers here, and we do
have a genetic predisposition for surfers here. Uh that that's
that seems to be the case. But um, I think
it's it's a stretch to tie it in with this
(23:43):
uh largely refuted theory. Yeah, well, I mean I want
to say again, not that we accept the theory or
would advocate it, but in the defense of this theory,
I mean, it is interesting to consider, and there's nothing
inherently implausible about the situation. It imagines no nor insidious.
It's not like an anti science theory, right, right, right,
(24:05):
It's just so there's nothing implausible about like prehistoric primates
migrating to a partially aquatic lifestyle and gaining biological adaptations
in the process. It happened with other mammals, right, so
it's not hard to believe that a similar thing could have,
in principle happened with primates. But the question is, just
is that what the evidence we have today's supports, And
(24:27):
I think most experts, for good reasons, think the answer
is no. U. Most experts today believe the evidence for
humans having an aquatic ape ancestor doesn't hold up very well. Again,
there's zero direct evidence of it, so we don't have
like remains of an aquatic ancestor that just doesn't exist.
So you're you're having to hypothesize a sort of like
(24:47):
lost period that we haven't found direct evidence of yet,
but just reason backwards from traits that exist later. But
there's a basic question here. I can't I came across
this on from the writings of some paleo anthropologists, and
I'm sorry now I'm forgetting the the person's name. But
here here's the basic answer. If all these traits that
(25:09):
are they're trying to explain through the aquatic ape theory
were acquired through an aquatic lifestyle that happened maybe four
to seven million years ago, why were all the aquatic
traits retained for millions of years after our ancestors supposedly
moved back to dry land. You would you would expect,
like then that these traits would be lost because now
(25:30):
they'd be vestigil. Yeah, we'd grow all that lovely hair back,
unless you pose it like, well, actually, it turned out
once you moved back on the land, there was a
good reason for retaining that trait. Now now it stayed
because it served some other survival purpose. But then you
could just short circuit the aquatic ape situation and say, well,
maybe we just got those traits because it served some
(25:52):
other purpose. So, like, like coming back to the the
hair theory of like the less hair you have, the
more you're able to show off that parasite free skin. Right,
that's a common theory. I mean, so there are a
couple of major theories that exist now to explain why
humans ancestors lost a lot of the body hair they
originally had, and we don't know the answer but some
fairly plausible answers seem to be that that it helped
(26:15):
with with heat dispersal uh, and that it was maybe
a very good sexual selection signal. It it showed off,
I don't have any lice on me because look how
little hair I have. And it turns out that I
think there are better explanations like that, And again we
don't know them for sure, but they seem like very plausible,
fitting with the evidence, explanations for all of these traits
(26:36):
that are answered through the aquatic ape theory. So why
do we stand up on two legs? We don't know
the answer, but a good candidate for that seems to
be that we were using our hands for things we
adapted to have to want to have free hands uh
and other things like Oh. A common one that's cited
for the aquatic ap hypothesis is that why do we
have voluntary control over our breath? Right? We wouldn't need
(26:59):
that less we were trying to be able to dive
underwater to get you know, marine mollusks or something is prey.
But what if we evolved voluntary control of the breath
because we needed to speak right, to speak to seeing,
you know, to to communicate with each other with each other,
that these are activities that require control of breath. Yeah, so,
(27:20):
I guess my main takeaway is that, you know, I
don't want to slam aquatic ape too hard. It's not
like an odious theory or something. It's just that I
think it's something that is. It's unfortunately sticky, and there
are better hypotheses more in line with the actual evidence.
We have to explain the same morphological features that people
appeal to the aquatic ape theory to explain. All right, well,
(27:41):
on that note, let's take one more break. But when
we come back, we will we'll get to some more
good stuff discussing surfer's ear in human remains but also
in the remains of Neanderthals. Thank alright, we're back. So
I think all this stuff about surfer's ear is fascinating
in and of itself. But the the extra cool thing
here is that surfer's ear is detectable in human remains, right,
(28:03):
because it's not just soft flesh. They're like bony protroser. Yes,
so we can we can look to coastal humans of
the past and judge to what degree they were interacting
with cold water, and then we can also based on that,
determine how such acts were divided between the genders based
on the skeletal remains. For instance, in December of researchers
(28:26):
from Washington University in St. Louis discovered skeletal evidence of
surfer's ear in a pre Columbian Panamanian village. They were
looking at a hundred and twenty five skulls from nine
burial sites, and they found seven cases in males, one
in female. So this is this is interesting. You think
of Panama and you think of you You You may think
of warmer waters, but the water in the Gulf of
(28:48):
Panama is actually quite cold between January and April. And
the researchers believe that the divers here, that the remains
that they found were likely specialized pearl divers UH probably
going after stuff like like mother of pearl or um
or the orange and purple pearls that derived from two
species of thorny oysters. These were These were popular in
(29:08):
the region and you also find these artifacts among the
very dead in these grave sites. Also, Spanish explorers would
later record the activities of such pearl divers as well
as you know, staying there. They were trained since childhood
to dive down four fathoms that's twenty four ft or
seven point three meters deep. My ears are hurt and
(29:29):
just thinking about that. Uh. So you know, surface certainly
like these would have been individuals diving down into those
cold waters of training from an early age and developing
these bony protrusions that would that were then detectable. Um
you know, you know ages later when we look back
and try and figure out how they lived. So you know,
it's a little things like that that are insightful about it.
(29:50):
But of course we're talking about the recent past. We're
talking about human remain you know, Almo Sapiens, is there
is there a reason you brought up Neandertells early on.
I feel like, yes, we've got a connection here, and
that's because there's a very recent study and this one
came from Washington University. Uh, Eric trink Us at All,
author to paper External auditory exostosis among Western Eurasian late
(30:16):
Middle and Late Pleistocene humans, and this was published in
Plos one. So, uh, just a refresher about the Neanderthals
who we've we've talked about on the show before and
we'll continue to talk about because there's always some sort
of cool Neanderthal related story coming out. Uh. They are
our closest extinct relatives. They lived in Eurasia two hundred
(30:36):
thousand to thirty thousand years ago. We don't know exactly
what happened to the Neanderthals. They likely transitioned from they
were out likely originally translition transition from Homo antecessor to
Homo neanderthal insis a hundred and fifty thousand years ago,
and then they went extinct thirty thousand years ago. Now
(30:56):
we're continuing to learn a great deal about them, how
they differed from a physically, but also what their culture
may have consisted of. They were ideal cold weather hominids,
shorter and stockier than Homo sapiens. They had large brains,
but it seems that their brains were were far more
suited for intense visual processing rather than social processing, which
(31:17):
would have been needed in the lower light northern climates
of Europe. Homo sapiens, on the other hand, are ultimately
the evolutionary project product of higher light regions of Africa.
So enter this new study from Eric Trinkaus. At All,
they examined well preserved ear canals and the remains of
seventy seven ancient humans, including Neanderthals and early modern humans
(31:41):
of the Middle too late Plicetocene epoch of western Eurasia.
So the rate of Homo Sapiens surfers ear was more
or less standard. But half of the twenty three Neanderthals
sampled had E A and their cases were mild to severe,
and we're seeing at roughly twice us the frequency of
Homo Sapiens examples. So the obvious explanation would be that
(32:05):
Neanderthals simply foraged in cold waters more than Homo sapiens,
and that might well have been part of it. Certainly
it highlights that the water, the cold waters were part
of their foraging, uh, you know, realm. But it also
could mean that they just had an even greater genetic
predisposition for E A. Because again, humans have a pre
(32:26):
disposition for E A. Uh, and we we see that
in modern human genetics as well. So here's just a
quick quote from from drink House about the study. Quote.
An exceptionally high frequency of external auditory exotosis among Neanderthals
and a more modest level among high latitude earlier Upper Paleolithic,
(32:47):
modern humans indicate a higher frequency of aquatic resource exploitation
among both groups of humans than is suggested by the
archaeological record. In particular, it reinforces the foraging abilities and
resource diversity of the Neanderthals. Well, that's interesting. So it's
saying that this is an indication that maybe humans and
(33:07):
especially Neanderthals of the time, we're spending more time foraging
in the water than other evidence in the archaeological record
would predict. Just another example of possible evidence for for
Neanderthal exploitation of marine resources for for food or whatever.
Is A is a paper I was looking at from
P and A s from two thousand and eight by
(33:28):
Stringer at all that found is I was looking at
the Gibraltar region and the authors said that what we
find indications that Neanderthals had knowledge of the geographic distribution
and behavior of their prey. We present here the evidence
from Gibraltar sites showing that Middle Paleolithic humans exploited not
only mollusks, but also seals, dolphins, and fish through a
(33:51):
wide spread of time. Dolphins and seals. So we got
Neanderthals of the period potentially hunting marine mammals. Not quite wailing,
but a modest form of marine mammal hunting. And yeah,
and then in the process of doing it, developing surfers
here possibly to the point of of deafness. And and
by the way, there's a there's another paper and paper.
(34:13):
It was also from drink Us from Seen, in which
he and his team found an old, older Neanderthal from
about fifty thousand years ago who had suffered multiple injuries
and become deaf. As such, he argued that the elder
must have relied on the help of others to avoid
prey and survive well into his forties. So, you know,
(34:35):
sort of like sandwiching these two separate studies together, it
like it kind of paints this picture, you know, of
these you know, these these these Neanderthals of foraging in
the cold waters, diving down for mala's, going after these
uh uh, these other marine creatures, and in doing so,
like the the the older members of the society, at
(34:55):
least the ones that are that are engaged in the
aquatic foraging, uh you know, going death and then having
to depend on other members of their society to survive.
So I know you've been picturing them as Patrick Swayze,
the entire time. Well no, but but for some reason,
when I first read the headline, like last week or
the week before, my my mind instantly went to point break.
(35:17):
It is the surfing movie. Uh par excellence. Wait what
about what about Surf Ninja's. I've never seen Surf Ninjas
can't vouch for it, I have anything. I guess we'll
have to come back and check out Surf ninja Is.
I just looked it up. Oh it has Rob Schneider
in it. One don't know, uh not that I can
see right here, and unletus he's a cameo. Okay, it's
(35:38):
goot Leslie Nielsen, tone Loke, Rob Schneider, Ernie Reyes Jr.
And All Star Gas. All right, well we'll have to
leave it there. But you know again, Neanderthal's continue to
be a topic of interest, and they're just there's always
so many. There are always so many great, uh potentially
interesting studies that are coming out about them. So I'm
(35:58):
sure we'll come back to the world at the end
at Alls in the future on Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
In the meantime, if you want to check out other
episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over
to Stuff to blow your Mind dot com. You can
also find our other show, Invention at invention pod dot com. UH.
That's our our journey through human techno history looking at
various inventions. We haven't done one on the surfboard, but
(36:19):
that's exactly the kind of thing we could do because
we try, and we've been trying to cover a wide
variety of inventions, from like major recent technologies to ancient
in inventions that are lost to time, from you know,
from the the advanced and the and and the to
the simple, from the obvious, uh, to the to the
far less obvious. So check out that show if you
(36:40):
haven't already, and if you want to support these shows
that we're putting together for you, the best thing you
can do is tell your friends about us. Wherever you
get the podcast, rate and review us, leave us some
stars and a nice comment that helps us out a lot.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Maya Cole.
If you'd like to get in touch with us with
feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest topic
(37:00):
for the future, just to say hello, you can email
us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart
Radios How stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(37:23):
listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.