Aquatic Adapting of Human Newborns
Meijers, D.J.W.
International Society for Biosemiotic Studies,
Beta Sciences Department Head and Teacher (Retired),
Zuyderzeecollege, Emmeloord, NL 8302 GA, Netherlands.
Email: dirk-meijers@xs4all.nl
Abstract
In 1960 Sir Alister Hardy posed the question “Was Man more aquatic in the past?”
To honour Hardy, this paper discusses the skills of human babies and toddlers in
aquatic settings as a possible leftover of a littoral past in the evolution of our human
ancestors. It demonstrates that there is a sensitive period early in the life of Homo sapiens
when specific innate templates are activated for adapting to aquatic conditons. However,
whether the early aquatic adaptations of babies are connected to the evolution of Homo
sapiens has never been reported.
Following their introduction, baby swimming courses received a lot of attention in
many different countries. In 1937, Myrtle McGraw first described the swimming behaviour of
babies. Since then it has always been reported that the repeated exposure of babies to water
activates reflexes that result in ‘waterproof’ babies. Additionally striking is the quicker
physiological, mental and social interaction of swimming babies compared to their nonswimming peers. From very early childhood to maturity, Homo sapiens is able to waterproof
behaviour in swimming and diving. In the Hominin group, only Homo sapiens is aquatically
versatile, an attribute not shared by Pan (Chimpanzee, Bonobo) and Gorilla.
Therefore, this is an argument for “yes” to Hardy’s question.
KEY WORDS: Homo sapiens, baby swimming, aquatic adaptation, aquatic reflexes, human
evolution.
The baby-swimming project
What I am about to describe is now easier to witness because there are babyswimming courses all over the world. But alas, my conclusions are limited. Original semiaquatic human populations are still known to exist, but are marginal and diminishing. The
little which was previously known about the ‘waterproof’ behaviour of babies was from the
remaining South East India ‘sea-dwelling’ populations and island bound semi aquatic
populations in Micronesia.
Nowadays, however, with the proliferation of baby-swimming courses for the
privileged all over the world, one can clearly observe that with an early start, only a few
months from birth, babies and toddlers are able to learn to float and perform primitive
swimming and diving, thus providing the bases for my observations in this article.
Yet even though there are aquatic adaptations in human newborns, these have never
been reported of other hominin babies (Gorilla, Chimpanzee, Bonobo), which suggests that
there are no other hominin ‘waterproof’ babies. And while wading and grabbing food in
shallow water is known of all hominins, real swimming and diving, to collect fruits de mer, in
the wild is never seen in apes, which is not surprising, since their habitats rarely necessitate
these abilities.
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Early knowledge of complex animal behaviour remained obscure during the heyday of
Behaviourism, and one aspect was underestimated: babies and very young children are very
aware and ‘understand’ more than was first believed. Myrtle McGraw knew this, and
commenced research, which led to the discovery of the ‘water baby’.
From the foetus to old age, internal processes are based on innate mechanisms. The
definitions ‘reflexes’ and ‘instincts’ are no longer useful given that many very complex
adapting processes have been discovered since. In both ethology and neuropsychology,
several ‘time frames’ are reported for adaptive imprinting to activate time-critical or timesensitive central nervous system (CNS) templates.
Template models are tools for understanding how intensely babies and mothers
interact, and how this is responsible for the development in general (including aquatic
adaptations). These are further described in the ‘Mother-child interaction and aquatic
activities’ section below.
Mechanisms for the innate releasing of preformatted CNS templates are influenced
particularly during primal periods. Once active in aquatic settings, they bring about well
developed floating, swimming, diving and playing, and an ‘aquatic memory’until adulthood.
In water, babies factually experience their first sense of free moving, feeling greater
freedom and receiving important stimulation of neural pathways in the brain, more than their
‘terrestrial bound’ peers. Babyswimmers sit, stand, crawl and start walking (just like nonbabyswimming peers), though they definitely acquire important extra-activated development,
beyond their waterproof abilities.
Activities in and near water with the important, active participation of mothers (and
others) are very natural. In traditional societies, extended families or joint family groups
acting together provided this. When in these societies babies are ‘waterproof’, they float, dive
and swim primitively, while interacting with groups of kin made up of adults and children.
Nowadays, the ‘norm’ in modern societies is a ‘nuclear’ family, and the concept of 'extended'
as in the original semi-aquatic populations rarely exists. Consequently, its role has now been
taken over by the professionals in baby and children swimming courses.
Suggested hypothesis
By displaying the ability to float, swim and dive during the first few months after
birth, human babies and toddlers are proof of successful aquatic adaptation. The inbuilt
properties involved are triggered in a genetically preset, sensitive process, which starts in the
newborn and lasts for about a year. This quickens the development of physical, physiological,
emotional and social capacities, and the functional properties of babies and toddlers.
These spontaneous innate adaptations to aquatic conditions are not known to occur in
apes, including the other hominins, Pan (Chimpanzee, Bonobo) and Gorilla. This indicates
that it is part of our ancestral heritage and possibly a reason for responding “yes” to Sir
Alister Hardy’s question.
Waterbabies and Myrtle McGraw (1899–1988)
In the 1930s, Myrtle McGraw [6, 24, 25] demonstrated that babies, through
adaptation, could learn involved movements like how to stay afloat. Her data suggested how
cortical control emerges gradually, enabling infants to increase awareness of and control over
actions. Her way of testing was considered controversial, at a time when underestimating the
perceptions and emotions of newborns was normal. Yet to McGraw it was the other way
around, and her results are now accepted.
Swimming was only a part of it, and having noticed its positive influence, she made
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many professionals aware of it. When, in the 1930s and ’40s, Myrtle McGraw first published
the effects of aquatic training on babies, it inspired in Homo sapiens a widespread swimming
boom in newborns and babies.
Her work inspired research on babyswimming. She began in the heyday of behaviouralism, and
her views on the limitations of perspective were underscored in Myrtle McGraw: Pioneer in
Neurobehavioral Development, Dalton and Bergenn [6]. The following is a brief account of how it
all began:
She reported that she and another experimenter, at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Centre, entered an elevator
together, he with a monkey on his shoulder and she with a baby in her arms. Both were headed for the
laboratories to conduct some physiological measurements. As the elevator ascended, the young man asked her
why she was studying babies.
She answered, “Well, really, I am not studying babies, I am interested in the process of growth.”
“Then why do you use human babies and not animals for subjects?” he asked, “You can do more with animals,
and they aren't nearly so messy.”
“Yes, I know,” she answered, “but when your monkey grows up it will still be a monkey, while my baby will
be a human. I want to know how he does it.”
She was not content with ‘standard’ processes, described as ‘classical’ and ‘operant’
conditioning, and was a forerunner of early ethological-based reasoning. She refused to
observe monkeys and apes merely as subjects, and possibly was the only person to witness the
aquatic properties of our newborns. Some of her renowned ‘followers’ were: Virginia Hunt
Newman (World Aquatic Babies & Children Network WABC), Langendorfer and Bruya [24],
Diem [7], Barnett [3], Freedman [10] and Odent [32, 33].
Baby ‘swimming’ is not, of course, real swimming, but the term ‘babyswimming’
became commonly used when successful baby courses started. It is, in fact, only the
realization of ‘waterproof’ behaviour. Real swimming is only possible after a specific period.
Although we refer to ‘babies’, generally it is thought that aquatic activities should only
commence after four to six months, and sometimes even later because the immune system,
has not yet been fully inoculated and the infant is less able to perform voluntary movements.
Biological arguments for an earlier start in ‘Homo sapiens in natura’ are based on
facts: although this is not generally accepted, earlier is possible, even in the neonatal period.
In the original (very small) populations of many ‘primitive’ (non-industrial, often
tribal) semi-aquatic cultures, babies were taken care of in water, and mothers spent more
years breast-feeding their babies and toddlers; a basal habitat connected with resources
required immunoglobulin antibodies. The principal ‘extended family’ in those cultures is in
no way comparable to the (vast, disease-spreading) mass-populations of modern Homo
sapiens.
To find adaptations and the name of this ‘probable ancestor’ is risky since it can only
be observed now with the interference of professional trainers in pleasant swimming pools.
A survey of waterproof babies in semi-aquatic human populations would have more value,
but their existence is fast diminishing, and researchers are hindered by distinct private and
social rules.
Water adapted newborns had, in fact, already been observed in the 18th century as
mentioned by Odent and Johnson [29]: “When Captain Cook discovered the Hawaiian Islands
in 1778, he later wrote of seeing ‘neonates, floating on their backs, in the warm streams and
lagoons’ …”
However, reported sightings of natural water births in sea people societies are
increasingly rare. Eyewitnesses occasionally still report accounts of young indigenous
children swimming and diving in the Amazons, on Andaman and Nicobar islands and in all
the swimming and diving boat-dwelling, fishing and foraging sea nomad communities. These
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diminishing populations, with several features in common, are found in the Southeast Asian
territories of Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Indonesia, Phillippines; and on the South
Korean Jeju Island, with its female divers.
In Seashore – Primitive Home of Man [35], Carl Ortwin Sauer described:
However primitive the people who live by warm or temperate water, they are generally excellent
swimmers and divers. European seamen who visited Tasmania in early days were impressed by the
ability of the aborigines to swim and dive, especially to bring shellfish from the sea floor. The natives
of the Gulf of California were among the most primitive inhabitants of North America; they included
the Seri of the mainland and, on the peninsula of Lower California, the Pericu, Gaicura, and Cochimi.
All were very adept swimmers and divers. Spaniards employed them to collect valuable pearl oysters
(of the genus Pinctada), when diving for which they weighted themselves with stones. The Pericu
were also able to spear fish while diving.
In the New Scientist, Helen Phillips [32] reported remarks by Erica Schagatay about
observations on the physiological properties of Indonesian Sea Dwellers: “Orang Suku Laut
sea people spend up to 10 hours every day in the water, they give birth in the water, the
children dive before they walk and the people harvest all their food from the sea.”
Françoise Freedman [11], founder of BirthLight baby swimming, conducted fieldwork
on the upper Amazon in the 1970s and noticed how much fun indigenous people had
everyday with babies and children playing in the rivers. Babies were trained to hold onto
parents and swim towards them and were always picked up before they got distressed. It was
the Amazonian forest people who inspired the original BirthLight approach to
babyswimming.
Baby-swimming is a model accepted in all industrialised societies, and the resulting
waterproof babies are called ‘waterbabies’.
Alongside baby swimming, waterbirths for human babies were propagated in the
1970s and became accepted in Western societies. Experiences became available through the
work of Michel Odent [30].
Waterbirths appeared to be remarkably safe and peaceful, and opened a new
connection between our waterproof babies and the innate, semi-aquatic ‘waterproof’ past of
their ancestors.
A general lack of knowledge about waterproof freely moving human newborn babies
and toddlers accounts for why a split between ourselves and our kin had never been noticed.
Possibly because it had not occurred in parallel hominin evolutionary lines: Pan and Gorilla.
Our historical knowledge was based only on information on ‘adult’ behaviour.
Waterproof swimming and diving was scarcely mentioned, let alone waterproof babies and
toddlers. Therefore, without Myrtle McGraw, we would possibly never have made the
connection. Her exemplary work was an important source for knowledge, as described in the
next paragraph.
The aquatic behaviour of newborns and young babies
Getting newborns and very young babies used to water happens earlier and easier than
expected. With increased safety precautions to prevent drowning, parents were encouraged to
overcome their initial fears and what was recognized in all aquatic ‘starters’ was this:
- the diving reflex already functions in newborns,
- none inhale water during ‘diving’, when gently pulled underwater,
- babies are not generally apprehensive about the next dive, and some are eager to repeat it,
- underwater, the epiglottis closes over and blocks water from going down into the throat,
- babies always keep their eyes wide open under water,
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-
at times, they open their mouths without choking,
they perform primitive ‘salamander-like’ swimming,
they move their legs to make a turn,
movement to the surface is carried out with an effective lordosis curve of the back.
within a few months, they are able to float on their backs.
After years of worldwide baby swimming, more is known about the innate behavioural
properties and the many general positive effects.
Interaction between babies, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters is considerable in
realizing what is performed. Ethologically, it is comparable to the behaviour of aquatic and
semi-aquatic animals when adapting their young to water.
An important point is whether there is a difference in the acquisition of adaptive
reflexes in newborns: is the baby ‘only subject’ to what is trained aquatically, or is there an
innate resource for adaptation to aquatic behaviour?
Reflexes were already related to physiology and neurobehavioral development, and
McGraw’s conclusions started further research into its development (Sweeny J.K. [39]):
The swimming reflex in normal infants was first described by McGraw, who developed a three phase
classification of aquatic behavioural development: A. reflex swimming, B. disorganized motor
activity, and C. deliberate voluntary movements. These three phases were concluded after 445
observations of 42 infants (from 11 days to 2.5 years old) to identify the amphibian motions used by
children of varying ages during spontaneous prone propulsion through water without swimming
instructions.
(insert Figure 1)
Figure 1. The diagonal crawling of Johnny Woods
McGraw [25, 26] (modified, Meijers).
It is not certain whether A, B, and C, of Johnny Woods in Figure 1 are all really
deliberate voluntary movements. A. is a swimming movement of the depicted Salamander
larvae, observed by McGraw in eleven day old Johnny Woods. Johnny was swimming B and
C for about 2–3 months before the movement became more variable. Possibly it ‘activated
innate locomotive properties’ which once triggered led to more.
In stage B, we recognise something from the Infant Swimming Resource ISR [18b]
promotion film Drowning Prevention Strategy for Infants and Young Children. Harvey
Barnett [3] popularised the teaching of effective floating in babies. It is comparable to a life
jacket position, based on the buoyancy of the ‘baby’s own body shape’.
B is coincidental with the achievement of unsupported bipedal locomotion.
C, newborn ‘salamander’ movements, no longer present when the infant is placed in
water after phase B, suggest original ontogenetic adaptation to intrauterine environment.
Their ‘reappearance’ then in phase C, possibly has something to do with practicing (learning)
like in her co-twin studies. They also demonstrate the influence of decreasing gravitational
constraints on the behaviour of newborns.
McGraw considered the B and C actions to be better organized than either neonatal
crawling or stepping movements. It was an early observation of the positive effects of baby
swimming based on the first free movements of newborns. To say that they are ‘only’
reflective and ‘not voluntary’ is neither useful nor appropriate here. Eibl-Eibesfeldt [8]
defined them more approprionately as innate properties of babies and innate releasing
mechanisms. He mentioned diagonal crawling (right) in Figure 2 as ‘diagonal walk’ but this
drawing is the replicated salamander swimming phase published by McGraw (A in Figure 1)
[24].
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Figure 2. Eibl-Eibesfeldt: Hand grasping, foot grasping,
primary stepping, diagonal crawling [8].
Myrtle McGraw recounts in an interview published as Myrtle McGraw: Pioneer in
Neurobehavioural Development in Portraits of Pioneers in Psychology [6]:
Coghill (1929, 1930) visited our laboratory several times and I had become somewhat knowledgeable
of his embryological studies of salamanders. I was particularly impressed with his description of the
‘S’ movement of the spinal axis of embryonic vertebrates and his theory of individual development. I
had observed that some of the newborn infants could progress several feet across the bed by using that
kind of S-shaped spinal movement. Watson had stated, on the basis of his earlier studies, that there
was no evidence of a swimming reflex in the behaviour of the newborn infant. When he saw me
demonstrate the reflex by putting the babies in the water and letting their heads go under, he said,
“Girl you have a lot more courage than I had.” It was those observations and thoughts that triggered
our studies of the swimming reflex in the infant (McGraw in 1939 [39]).
Some of the experiments in Figure 2 are originally in general described as fixed action
patterns of ‘robot-like’ newborns subjects. However, in these experimental tests with
newborns, physical and emotional reactions are visible. Nowadays we recognize such
negative emotional states. ‘Robotic’ is hardly the way to describe McGraw’s work with the
Woods boy in 1934, even though she preceded him. She later said that in her opinion a
mother should first of all learn her baby’s responses.
In 1953, McGraw began training undergraduate women to work with infants and
young children. In an article published after her retirement in 1972, she argued that in an era
featuring the disappearance of the extended family and with increasing instability in nuclear
families, methods should be developed to train young people to observe and understand the
behavioural development of infants before having their own.
Her work with free movements in water provided compelling evidence of how the
innate possibilities of infants and young children have systematic and quantifiable effects on
development. It was an eye opener to incorporated behavioural elements in the species Homo
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sapiens’ (Lorenz [22]; Eibl-eibesfeldt [8, 9]).
With this in mind, it is important to be aware of recent findings, and it may be useful
to cite Sample Gosse and Gotzke [34] from Interacting (0 -3 Months) - Relating to Each
Other Right From the Start:
Each baby is a ‘people person’ right from birth – with natural abilities that have caused some to say
that these little beings are ‘prewired’ to communicate with others. Even very young babies show
interests and abilities that support interaction with those around them. In turn, caregivers promote
interaction by treating a baby’s behaviour as a form of communication. Listening and vocal skills
develop within the framework of these caregiver-baby interactions. Throughout the first three months,
caregivers and babies are learning to understand each other’s communication signals.
Discussions about baby swimming resulting in sound toddlers and little swimmers are
important. Langendorfer and Bruya [21] mention this explicitly, pointing to different views
and consequences. Examples are: “Generally, children are not developmentally ready for
formal swimming lessons until their fourth birthday,” and neither the terms ‘developmentally
ready’ nor ‘formal swimming lessons’ are well defined. No current research data exists to
support the application of the ‘fourth birthday’ (or any other such age) as a cut-off point for
initiating swimming lessons. Langendorfer and Bruya take a view somewhere in between:
baby swimming training is okay, but starting at a very early age is not. They warn not to
underestimate the dangers of a very early start, as McGraw did with the newborn Johnny
Woods. I would accept a warning related to baby swimming courses with many participants
in ‘open’ swimming pools, but not regarding effective home settings, when one knows what is
safe and appropriate during the first month.
Recently (2010) these stances are changing and the involvement of organisations is
becoming more acceptable. In all of this, however, the role of ‘adults’ is prominent. If I
change the word ‘adults’ to ‘parents and siblings’ it fits 100% with the ethological (natural
biological) perspective: the acting together of joint family groups in traditional societies.
Behaviour then includes all actions between mother and child, such as interactions (speaking,
singing, chattering, caressing, playing), discipline (physical guiding, watching) and actions
not directed at the child (interactions with other people present). In that way, it functions as it
still does in sea dwelling populations and similar extinct groups, based on the same ‘memory’
of probable littoral ancestors.
Critical or sensitive imprinting period
‘Imprinting’ was introduced into ethology by research on animal behaviour. ‘Imprints’
are now explained as aspects of innate ‘neural templates’ responsible for specific adaptations.
The process ‘runs’ in a fixed short or variable, longer time-window, known as the ‘critical or
sensitive period’.
During this interval, an indelible memory of certain salient stimuli in the ‘home’
environment is acquired and retained. Imprinted behaviour, however, is by no means in all
cases 100% regulated by templates, and whether they are innate or learned by experience is
not always clear. As far as the behaviour of waterproof babies is concerned, innate fixed
short-term patterns play an important role. In later stages of toddlers and pre-school children,
a ‘not-clear-cut’ logical situation appears, and learning real swimming is still possible, of
course. Though it takes much longer for those who have never been ‘baby swimmers’, and
longer still if they do so when they are older children or adults. This is clearly comparable to
problems arising from an overdue start to learning a non-native language.
Eibl-Eibesfeldt [8, 9] defined several learning strategies and inter-social behavioural
processes in Homo sapiens. A problem was, and often still is, that of describing the human as
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a ‘tabula rasa’ (Uzgalis W. [41]):
At one extreme, we have John Locke’s (1632–1704) idea of ‘tabula rasa’ that proposes that the minds
of newborn infants are blank slates that will be differentiated and altered only through sensory
experience. Modern biological determinism represents the other extreme. In its strictest form, this
ideology suggests that behaviours are inherent and innate, resulting from the expression of genes.
Most intellectuals subscribe to a view somewhere between these two extremes, on the gradient of a
controversy that is still a hot topic of debate in many intellectual fields.
Heather Sample Gosse and Carrie Gotzke [34] no longer accepted ‘tabula rasa’ when
interacting with (0–3 month old) babies. McGraw recognized this earlier and, in fact, used
interacting techniques with babies in ways most developmental researchers had never done so
previously. Knezek [20] correctly described it: “a variety of faculties to receive and abilities
to manipulate or process”.
A mammalian central nervous system (CNS) is never a ‘tabula rasa’ when engaged in
finding solutions to abstract problems. In Homo sapiens, the earliest moments of childhood
involve intense occupation with modulating important bodily parameters. It is an ongoing
interaction with the environment to overcome obstacles.
Behavioural aspects of imprinting aquatically are only a ‘small’ part of everything else
that is going on in babies. Nevertheless, intense interacting between newborns and mothers
(and other caregivers) during free-moving baby-swimming results in effective adaptation. It is
a complete ‘package’, functioning early on in (even very young) babies, with breath-holding,
swimming, diving and floating.
The language-adapting timeframe is a better-known example that can be used as a
comparison with aquatic adaptation. Language is a very important aspect of ‘super-social’
Homo sapiens, and a lot of research is available, although there are still different opinions
about when it starts and how it functions. Humans obviously require extensive postnatal
experience to produce and decode speech sounds, the basis of language. A critical period for
learning a new language is demonstrated by the poorer ability (fluency), based on the age,
evident in non-native immigrants to adapt to situations requiring a different language. The
ability to score well in tests on non-native grammar and vocabulary declines from
approximately the age of 6 or 7 onwards. And while innate templates for adapting to aquatic
conditons begin to run and ends already in the first year, with language-imprinting, there is a
longer ‘critical period’ for completion. And although, as with language, swimming can be
learnt many years later, it will take older children and grown-ups a lot longer to achieve
results.
Harvey Barnett, founder of Infant Swimming Resource, presented his considerations
in A Behavioural Approach to Paediatric Drowning Prevention’ at the University of
Oklahoma Health Science Centre, on March 5, 2009 [3]. He stated that the apparent reflexes
of very young children adapting to aquatic circumstances differ completely between 2 and 4
years of age. An early starting point leads to quick and easy aquatic adaptation of newborns
and toddlers. Barnett, like others, mentions that such development is connected to early
psychomotor abilities. It is a very complex process with many more involved preformatted
templates, which starts earlier than after 4 months and is not ‘just an unconscious instinctive
process’. It functions in a biosemiotic way as interaction between open-minded ‘subjects’: a
Homo sapiens neonate with its mother and with everyone and everything around it. The
conscious open mind of a young baby is a factor that should not be underestimated. Myrtle
McGraw showed visionary reasoning [6]:
… Let me reiterate what I said in the concluding chapter of Growth: A behaviour-course is not an
isolated unit growing in every direction all the time at once. It is comprised of many aspects, each of
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which has its own growth rate and rhythm. While each aspect of a growing action-pattern has its own
identifiable way of developing, it is at the same time an integral part of the total behaviour-pattern, in
the same fashion that the behaviour-pattern in question is an integral part of the total action-system of
the individual. One aspect of a behaviour-pattern goes through a period of rapid development, then
pauses as another aspect moves rapidly forward. But the growth of each aspect of development
influences and determines the growth of the other. The development of one aspect overlaps with the
development of another so that there are no sharp lines of demarcation separating the phases of a
developing pattern, but the connection of one phase or one pattern with another is more than mere
overlapping.
There is a close interdependence in the growth of the various aspects of a pattern.
Development works back and forward; here and there it strikes rapids(? mv), in other spots it pauses or
regresses. The appearance of a new movement or aspect of a pattern facilitates or inhibits the growth
of a previously developing movement and also determines the emergence and organisation of a
succeeding one. It is the gradual twining and intertwining of movements and phases of developing
patterns, which make it difficult to allocate the rhythms and spurts of growth. (McGraw, 1935: pp.
305-306)
If ‘innate CNS templates’ had then already been defined, she would certainly have
used them to make her point.
Mother-child interaction and aquatic activities
The releasing time of sensitive templates to adapt a mother and baby to each other
starts in the first few hours and days after birth. The absence of contact between the two, or
less than is needed, makes adapting uneasy and difficult in many ways. Early participation in
highly interactive baby swimming enhances mutual adapting, and an ‘extra’ spin-off has been
proved: the quicker development of babies. Apart from the waterproof and preliminary
features of baby swimming already described, an account of some of the important properties
involved will be useful. Free movement in water provides heightened multi-sensory
stimulation involving touch, hearing, sight, taste and smell, in combination with emotions,
such as confidence, trust and self-esteem:
1. Physical development reveals that, like all animals, humans are subject, both
directly and indirectly, to the potentially irresistible influences of metabolic effects on muscle,
motive, and motor actions.
2. Once born, a baby senses gravity, a ‘sensation’ that was not present in the womb,
where it experienced the influence of ‘mass’, producing sensations that it received during 3D
movements of its mother. After birth, ‘weight’ is added, and the baby has to learn to ‘cope’
with the difference. During aquatic activities, this ‘change’ is revived, teaching babies how to
govern ‘habitat morphologic-motor familiarity’ in gaining and losing gravity at the same time.
3. As a result of a combination of properties (wetness, coldness, buoyancy, resistance
etc.), aquatic activities improve perceptivity, an important enhanced faculty. Perception is one
of the most important prerequisites for healthy mobility. Water also offers ‘threedimensionality’ and a freedom of movement that is not possible on land. It provides
confidence and has a positive effect on the physical and mental development of the baby.
4. The intense physical parent-child body contact promotes in the baby a strong sense
of trust in its parent. In addition, it promotes mutual trust in the psychological development of
the child.
5. Mothers recognize the sounds of their own babies and different states of mind:
enjoyment, fun, pleasure, tiredness, hunger, pain, and fear. Vocal ‘noise’ is always abundantly
there when children are active in water, albeit in a swimming pool, lake, riverside, or on the
beach. During baby swimming and other aquatic activities, babies and parents show sensitive,
appropriate-minded talk linked to what they are feeling-sensing-thinking.
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Babies and little children show a preference for ‘baby talk’, making eye contact with
the person who is speaking. Adult and adolescent speech to babies is already innately adapted
to this special style of speaking: slower, more melodic, higher pitched, and more repetitive.
Babies understand this ‘infant-directed voice-pitch speech’, which is moulded by emotions
and mental states. Suggesting the basic ingredients of empathy (the ability to share the
emotions of another person), it proves that newborns have a sense of self. Engaging in these
sensitive, appropriate mind-voices is an innate reactive behaviour between child and parent,
interacting with feelings, senses and meaning. This is a communicating principle also
dominant in other mammalian species, which is used effectively on a large scale in baby
swimming activities.
6. Newborns prefer to look at faces and face-like stimuli, and recognize their parents’
faces very quickly, not withstanding blurry vision. Like many adults, newborns show a
preference for eye contact. Gaze following is an important developmental skill in older
babies, and even newborns practice it in some rudimentary form. In baby swimming sessions,
this skill is permanently active, the baby looks to the parent to determine how they should
react to new situations. This also occurs while babies are diving, their eyes being always
open.
Behaviour during adaptation includes all interaction between all behaviour of mother
and baby, such as talking, singing, chattering, caressing, playing, watching, physical guiding
in floating, swimming and diving. I chose only a few and use a simplified biosemiotic model
(Figure 3). Biosemiosis presents biological denotations and specific definitions to describe the
interconnected existence of all living ‘entities’. A complex dispute is going on in ‘biosemiotic
circles’, but for me biosemiosis is a general ‘tool’ that can be applied to all life sciences
(Hoffmeijer [16], Sedov [36], Witzany [42]).
Figure 3. Template model and templates functioning.
To explain how it functions, I use biosemiosis: a CNS template ‘senses’ an outside
‘signal’, ‘reacts’ in turn, creating a ‘self’-produced ‘sign’ connected to an internal ‘sense of
self’. Activating innate templates via gene-environment interaction, this starts up very
complex adaptive ‘spirals’ (Figure 3). The functions of this ‘webbing’ is not 100% robotic
(‘instinctive’) in adaptation and behaviour: CNS innate coded templates release ‘module
patterns’ called [Fixed] Action Patterns ([F]AP), connecting many templates of ‘higher’ levels
(Figure 3). External and internal ‘signals’ interact, and these effect development and activate
learning.
The releasing of innate ‘mama’-preformatted template protocols already starts in the
foeto-placental period, and exerts considerable influence on the mother and foetus.
In other words, timed actions and interactions between mother and child release the linked
‘templates’ in the CNS, together with information on preserved co-adaptive functions
10
throughout the generations.
In ‘Aquatic Adapting of Newborn Humans’, different levels influence one another.
Having released specific templates of mother-and-baby-bonding, the next step is necessary. In
the picture of mama and baby interacting in water (Figure 4), I have added some aspects of
interactive sensing, signing and reacting, which speak for themselves.
Figure 4. Mama-baby interacting in water (© Holloway [40]).
The complex functioning of innate templates are the basic mechanisms behind baby
and toddler performance in aquatic settings. Thanks to baby swimming, we now know that it
makes active babies and toddlers waterproof.
Human baby swimmers show a considerably short ‘timeline’ in aquatic adapting, and
develop a number of different characteristics impressively faster than early non-aquatically
active peers (Figure 3), which is noted in all associated literature, and corroborated by direct
observations. The innate properties of our offspring to ‘shape’ these aquatic activities reveal a
probable beginning of early ancestral populations in ‘natural’ (semi) aquatic habitats. Not just
any stimuli will do: imprinting is linked to restricted innate ‘neural templates’ and triggered
only by specific interactions, such as those in aquatic activities.
Manifold worldwide baby swimming courses promote these basic activities and share
a vision about what is safe and sound. Françoise Barbira Freedman [10] from BirthLight,
speaking for them all says:
Newborn babies are naturally at home in water, having spent nine months in the amniotic fluid of the
womb. Playing together in water is an excellent way for parents to relax and start bonding with their
new child. It also develops the child’s physical and mental skills as well self-confidence.
Aquatic imprinting of babies
The success of baby swimming is real, connecting to linked CNS templates in the
sensitive imprinting period. This ‘runs’ from the first months to more than a year after birth.
To reach full potential in baby swimming, interaction with parents (or trainers) is necessary.
It establishes an ethological perspective of human adaptation under aquatic conditions.
Missing early imprinting can damage basic behaviour in many birds and mammals, our
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species included (Eibl-Eibesfeldt [9] and Alcock [1]).
The same applies in psychology and neuropsychology and some, like Balatskii [2],
have compared it to ethological definitions in biology:
Imprints are tinges of human instincts, which were studied, particularly by K. Lorenz. Many of the
currently dominating theses concerning the imprinting process are either disputable or vague. What we
know about imprinting is as follows: First, imprints occupy an intermediate place between genetic
imperatives (instincts) and conditioning. Second, they are formed accidentally (their character cannot
be predicted). Third, they are realized during critical periods called moments of imprint vulnerability,
when the individual cannot resist external directives. Fourth, imprints are of two types: good (positive
directives) and bad (negative directives).
Safe aquatic behaviour is most effective in young human babies when they interact
with parents (and siblings). This creates positive affectivity between children and parents, and
two significant ethological observations have been noted:
a) Missing this experience can lead to problems later on when really learning to swim
and dive.
b) It takes longer to adjust, and, in some cases, to overcome hydrophobia.
It does not make swimming impossible forever after, but it makes it more difficult to
accomplish.
Clearly, this differs substantially from missing the important imprinting phases for
developing much more complex abilities, like speech and language (Purves et al [33]).
Language is of the utmost importance for the functioning of Homo sapiens, swimming is not.
Because learning to swim and dive is obviously possible for adults later on, I prefer to
label the time-frame for baby swimming as ‘sensitive’ and ‘critical’, rather than ‘pertinent’.
The three phases are constantly observed and referred to in baby swimming courses and are a
main focus in research.
McGraw exposed little Johnny Woods to water in the first few weeks, but nowadays
starting at four to six months is the general practice. Reasons for starting later are generally
associated with the immune system, which in newborns is thought to not fully developed until
around six months. An earlier start would be more likely in ‘primitive’ non-dense
populations, where mothers pass on immunoglobulin antibodies by breast-feeding for several
years.
The baby’s first swimming activities are referred to as ‘salamander like’ [24, 17, 18a]
as shown in Figure 1 and 6a. Then, by rotating the legs in one direction and popping-up, it
realizes floating on its back, as if wearing a life jacket. Some of the reported movements when
testing very young babies in water were ethologically described earlier by Eibl-Eibesfedt [9],
but were not explicitly ‘aquatic’ traits:
Swimming movements can be released in infants that are a few weeks old by placing them into the
water in a prone position and merely holding them up by their chin. They paddle in a coordinated
fashion with hands and legs. The behaviour disappears at 3 to 4 months.
A salamander-swimming fragment of a simulation of “salamander locomotion” [14]
was recently added to the film clip about Johnny [17, 18a] (Figure 5, right) and is phase A in
Figure 1 and Figure 6.
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Figure 5. Left: Drowning prevention ISR YMCA [18b],
right: Johnny Woods's 11 day ‘salamander’ style [24, 17, 18a].
The ‘floating effect’ is an important feature described on numerous sites about
baby swimming. A good and important example is the film published by ISR [3, 18b]: Miles
Story, Drowning Prevention Strategy for Infants and Young Children”. The baby in this film
had 3 weeks of ISR lessons prior to fulfilling fully clothed self-rescue. Figure 5 demonstrate
baby Miles moving his legs for turning upwards. McGraw described this as the movement of
‘Johnny’ B, in Figure 1, and it can be observed in baby swimming classes everywhere.
Submerged, they hold their breath, start swimming motions, and perform rotation to float
(Figure 6). Floating on their backs, face above water, they start to breath and make relaxed
crying and babbling sounds. A very young baby can only paddle a few feet before being able
to float. Because at birth the head is one third of its weight, it is not able to raise it out of
water. Breathing is one of the skills that need to be learnt for buoyancy, but swimming needs
much more. Founder of Infant Swimming Resource (ISR), Harvey Barnett [33] states ‘real’
swimming is not possible before at least twelve months when the body has grown
successfully.
Figure 6. Three (ancestral) stages: A. salamander stroke, B. rotation, and C. floating.
© Meijers, 2009.
Human aquatic adaptive sensitive period ends after about one year. Taking into
account Myrtle McGraw’s results and modern knowledge of pre-set templates, it is plausible
that sensitive adaptive processes start directly after birth. However, accepting a very early
start, and that new-born ‘we’ have ‘instinctive’ behaviour and, beyond that, ‘innate imprinted’
learning phases, is still heavily debated. Nevertheless, neuropsychology has picked up on
links with definitions of imprinting in the ethology of animals and Homo sapiens, which show
a more open-minded approach to our position among other mammals. While discussing the
role of imprinting in Bonding Matters, The Chemistry of Attachment, Palmer [31] states that
the situation still needs improvement:
Sadly, over the last century parents have been encouraged by industry-educated experts to ignore their
every instinct to respond to baby’s powerful parenting lessons. Psychologists, neurologists, and
biochemists have now confirmed what many of us have instinctually suspected: that many of the
rewards of parenthood have been missed along the way, and that generations of children may have
missed out on important lifelong advantages.
Cited in nearly all publications on baby swimming, next to Myrtle McGraw, is the
work of Liselotte Diem [7]. By systematically testing kindergarten children and children from
the Cologne Sports High School in Germany, between 1974 and 1976, she discovered that
greater achievement is realized by interaction with parents and peers. It resulted in children
13
learning to swim at an early age and demonstrating advanced development in motor skills,
reaction time (reflexes), concentration (focus), extra positive social interaction, selfconfidence, independence and a greater tendency to cope with new unfamiliar situations.
Overall, children were better adjusted than their peers who had not participated in early
swimming programs. It confirmed that children who started swimming at an early age,
benefited from positive interaction and bonding with parents. Liselot Diem stated:
Clearly evident and statistically born out, children who started to swim in their third month:
1) showed an earlier and greater disposition for contacts, integrated faster and earlier to a peer group
and were able to overcome disappointments caused by playmates more readily,
2) were more independent and less fearful when confronted by new situations,
3) showed better results in regard to intellectual ability and performance than the children in the
comparison groups,
4) had greater precision in motion, better co-ordination and better balance.
As Federal Minister for Education and Science, she therefore propagated swimming
for babies, and teaching methods and gymnastics for children at preschool and kindergartens.
Sigmundsson and Hopkins [39] recently explored the effects of baby swimming on
subsequent motor skills. In this study a group of active baby swimmers (2-4 months old) was
compared to a group that had never had this experience.
Once again the results corroborate those of McGraw and Diem, and show an accurate view of
stimulating swimming activities, as noted in the following key passages:
 Physical exercise facilitates the development of motor skills.
 Programmed baby swimming may have positive effects on motor skill development.
 Programmed targeted baby swimming activities promote hand-eye coordination and
vestibular stimulation.
 Baby swimming may have rather specific effects on the motor domain, its potential
positive benefits should also be explored in other areas of relevance in child development.
Bell et al., in Concept Clarification of Neonatal Neurobehavioural Organization (NNBO)”
[4] formulated this:
What is already known about this topic:
 In the neonatal period (the first 28 days after birth) there is a sensitive and dynamic
unfolding of development unique to the neonate.
 This is therefore an opportune time to assess and intervene to promote optimal
neurobehavioural organization.
 The policy and culture of many maternal-child units demand clinicians to be task rather than
synchrony-oriented and thus there are missed opportunities to enhance neonatal neurobehavioural
organization.
What is added:
1. Inconsistent terminology, lack of a gold standard measurement, limited understanding of the
concept’s interplay between environmental interaction and genetic expression, and limited
evidence of the concept’s predictive relationship between the neonatal period and later
developmental trajectories were identified in literature.
2. Neonatal neurobehavioural organization is the ability of the neonate to use goal directed states of
consciousness, in reciprocal interaction with the care-giving environment, to facilitate the
emergence of differentiating, hierarchical and coordinated neurobehavioural systems.
3. Maturation of neonatal neurobehavioural organization is evidenced by the neonate’s everincreasing resiliency and capacity to learn from complex stimuli.
Partly mentioned in the conclusion:
Neonatal neurobehavioural organization is a global phenomenon that captures the essence of healthy
full-term neonatal function as resilient, individualized, complex, experiential and holistic. A clear
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conceptual definition will aid the international community (1) to communicate effectively within and
between disciplines, (2) to apply evidence-based research findings, and (3) encourage the development
of valid and reliable instruments to capture the multiple dimensions of NNBO. Clarification of NNBO
directs attention to the infant’s experience, which facilitates sculpting of early NNBO.
All totally in accordance with ethological concepts, and finally the observations of
Gottlieb [12] in Myrtle McGraw’s ‘Unrecognizable Conceptual Contribution to
Developmental Psychology’:
In the late nineteenth century and through much of the twentieth century, the notion of the early
developmental autonomy of motor behaviour pervaded behavioural embryology and the
developmental psychology of infant behaviour. In the midst of this predeterministic climate of opinion
concerning motor development, Myrtle McGraw briefly and tentatively broached the probabilistic
epigenetic notion of a bidirectional or reciprocal relationship between structural maturation and
function, whereby structural maturation of the nervous system is influenced by functional activity as
well as the other way around.
Myrtle McGraw thus anticipated our current understanding of the role of experience in the
cortical and motor maturation of infants in the first year of postnatal life. It is all the more remarkable
that she contributed this when there was a theoretical climate of opinion epitomized by
predeterministic epigenetic thinking. In the same vein, McGraw's second unrecognized contribution is
her clear formulation of a flexible critical period concept in 1935, one that is consonant with our
current understanding.
What is described here are the processes mentioned earlier which fit in a biosemiotic
model. Swimming adaptation of (even very young) Homo sapiens babies is a remarkable
example, because it happens very early on, and always in the same order. Once the involved
templates start to function, they produce not only aquatic competence and stability, but much
more besides. And it is worth repeating that the effects of baby swimming have been verified
over and over again, unleashing an unexpected series of ‘innate’ possibilities in newborn
Homo sapiens.
McGraw [24], Langendorfer [23], Diem [7], Barnett [3], Freedman [10], MacDonald
[23], Odent [30] and Sigmundsson and Hopkins [37] have all witnessed it, and recently so
have Jorgensen et al., in 2012, in their findings published in Adding Capital to Young
Australians [19]:
Children under five who have swimming lessons develop better language, literacy and numeracy skills
and are likely to be more prepared for the transition to school, according to a Griffith University study.
The four-year study surveyed almost 7000 parents of children from Australia, New
Zealand and the United States, and independently assessed 177 children aged three, four and
five. While acknowledging benefits from baby-swimming, here they are somewhat
exaggerated, and although Jorgenson's group does promote important acquisitions, I totally
reject a boosting of IQ ‘for all’.
Most parents simply don’t have access: lack of spare time, lack of money, nonorientated baby swimming society etc. Even in Australia, the percentage of baby swimmers is
small. The study is of no value if it does not compare subjects with those who never had the
aforementioned benefits.
Is the IQ boosting effect still measurable in adolescents and adults? I shouldn’t think
so, like with language: little expat children learn foreign languages very quickly, but their
older brothers and sisters do not. This has no influence later on in life. As far as adults are
concerned, it is different and comparable to the difficulties encountered when learning to
swim.
15
My only serious point is that baby-swimming does prove that there is an aquatic
‘something’ connected to our evolution, apparent from this critical or sensitive imprinting
period, and rest my case, given the ‘overall picture’ of our babies’ aquatic behaviour, and
Eibl-Eibesfeldt’s notion in Human Ethology [9]: the ethological coherence of babies, toddlers
and children in all human populations everywhere.
Neoteny and pedomorphosis
The hypothesis of the aquatic adapting of newborns has no bases if not connected to
neoteny and pedomorphy. The swimming adaptation of a newborn Homo sapiens has to be
linked to carried ancestral ‘predispositions’. In species, phylogenetic characteristics are
revealed in adults who retain traits previously seen in juveniles. In fact, human newborns in
water remind us of the original neotenic developmental properties described in different
animals and humans, also by Lorenz [22], Morris [27] and Gould [13]. This important point is
the result of research into transcriptional neoteny in Homo sapiens.
A finding of less note, though still important, shows that neoteny in Homo sapiens acts
on considerably separate levels (Somel et al. [38]).
Lorenz defined the combination of neotenic and pedomorphic retention of (foetal and)
juvenile characteristics into adult life, possibly linked to original ancestral properties.
… In other words, it only involves palingenetic characters that are recapitulated from ancestral forms.
It was necessary to discuss all of this in some detail because human beings correspond to the juvenile
stages of anthropoid apes in a large number of features, both in morphology and in the realm of innate
behaviour. Because a number of these persistent juvenile features of humans are ancestral characters,
authors that failed to take into account the principles of neoteny set out above have repeatedly cited
them as arguments against our derivation from anthropoid apes. In reality, they do not provide such
negative evidence.
Neoteny is here defined as a possible link to original ancestral anthropoids (prehuman) apes. This is an important notion for newborns and adults, corresponding with some
properties of morphology, physiology, and innate behaviour.
Therefore, if aquatic adaptive behaviour in our species is comparable to Lorenz’s
definition of neoteny, it allows us to connect with ancestral characters. Neoteny in humans is
generally linked to very long developing processes of the brain.
The question still remains: What was first ancestral? Maybe a naked, shore-dwelling,
swimming bipedal ape first, and then a brain-exploding tool-maker as a spin-off? If we accept
this, early human ancestors possibly did undergo forced adaptation in restricted sets of
habitats, leading to the aquatic physiological, morphological and behavioural properties. Not
strictly aquatic, but at least intensely semi-aquatic, thus demanding special adaptations. As to
exactly where, when and with whom, we are still speculating what possibly happened (Fig
19.). Niemitz [28] hints: “we see in children, adolescents and adults ancestral behaviour, the
preference for aquatic and semi-aquatic habitats.”
My own theory is that the juvenile aquatic properties of human newborn babies and
toddlers are neotenic and pedomorphic examples of aquatically adapted mature (and-cesors
of) Homo sapiens. The physiological properties encompass: diving, controlling breath, early
swimming movements, or swimming and diving in very little children, which continues from
adolescence to maturity. Swimming, diving, and playing in and near water can all be classed
as natural human behaviour in all stages of growth.
This fits with hand-free bipedalism connected with aquatic adaptations. Bipedal
abilities came first, followed by the gradual use of tools, and skilful dispersions, with greater
brains in bigger skullcaps.
16
And then, of course, we have long distance swimming, (very) deep diving, and
floating on practically anything available. Not just for playing, but also for foraging,
dispersing, transporting and travelling.
Views are gradually changing, albeit cautiously, as outlined in Wrangham et al. [43]:
Given that early hominins in the tropics lived in relatively dry habitats, while others occupied
temperate latitudes, ripe, fleshy fruits of the type preferred by African apes would not normally have
been available year round. We therefore suggest that aquatic or semi-aquatic underground storage
organs of plants were likely to have been key fallback foods, and that dry season access to aquatic
habitats would have been an important predictor of hominin home range quality. This study differs
from traditional savannah chimpanzee models of hominin origins by proposing that access to aquatic
habitats was a necessary condition for adaptation to savannah habitats. It also raises the possibility that
harvesting efficiency in shallow water promoted adaptations for habitual bipedality in early hominins.
Would the explorative activity have been facilitated by the ancestral aquatic
adaptations we have seen in newborn Homo sapiens? Maybe we need to point to strong
evidence on the speed of worldwide human dispersals along shores, riverbanks and over water
to many remote islands, archipelagos and ‘new’ continents. Acknowledged neotenic facts
further support the theory: like newborns, both sexes are without fur. The absence of fur
prevents negative cooling in semi-aquatic habitats. Water evaporating from fur costs bodily
heat, as I once demonstrated to students with a wet T-shirt. Another strong point: our babies
have a much greater surface-volume proportion than adults, resulting in a much stronger
cooling effect. It therefore seems logical that they are considerably more ‘naked’ than naked
grown-ups, and have more subcutaneous fat linked to their surface-volume proportion.
A denser and fattier fur, like that of many aquatic mammals, was an option, but we are
not the only naked talented mammalian swimmers and divers. Subcutaneous fat is an
adaptation to swimming and the in-and-out of water activities of babies, toddlers, children and
adolescent humans. Via isolation, it protects most aquatic mammalian species against cooling
and heat loss in two ways: by allowing less cooling while swimming (and diving), and by
preventing heat loss through evaporation ashore. The production of sebum acts as a basic
water-repellent in newborns (and foetuses) and is maintained in all stages up to pubertal and
adult humans (oily waterproof secretion of the sebaceous glands). Apart from that, it is also
an important protector against infections.
Chimpanzees, as revealed in experimental medical studies, have very different skin to
ours. Their sebaceous glands are not as well developed, and only rarely do they contain
glycogen granules, which are abundant in all human sebaceous glands. This must have
something to do with not having adapted to similar habitats. The alignment of centres of
buoyancy and gravity in males and females differ. Predominantly, females are better able to
float horizontally with considerable body volume above the surface, because their centres of
gravity and buoyancy almost coincide, allowing them to swim with ease and float
comfortably. An example of the position of ‘floaters’ is provided in Figure 7.
17
Figure 7. Floating baby and floating mama.
What is true for mothers is even more so for babies. Described successful ISR training
of floating position proves it. Can a mother floating with her baby during water-play be the
realization of semi-aquatic adaptation? Is the mother’s ability to float proof of a neotenic baby
feature? The unproven, though accepted, conclusion is, worldwide human babies are able to
realize waterproof behaviour. Moreover, swimming, diving, and playing in and near water is
natural behaviour at all ages.
Discussion about what possibly happened
Waterproof behaviour in newborns is a unique, innate feature of our versatile
swimming and diving species. Homo sapiens is a talented aquatic swimmer and diver,
playing, foraging, dispersing, transporting and travelling in water. Our real swimming, diving
and fun in ‘the wild’ is totally absent in purely terrestrial hominin (Pan, Gorilla). For them,
swimming and diving is impossible because buoyancy is hindered by body shape and
dispersed muscle mass. Their habitats are not semi-aquatic, though wading and grabbing food
in shallow water has been known. Aquatic behaviour is natural in babies, mature adults and in
the elderly. Research shows that baby-swimming enhances early social interaction, selfconfidence, independence, and coping with new unfamiliar situations. This special adaptive
development is connected to innate psychomotor and social abilities in the first year of life. If
we accept this, a semi-aquatic habitat is clearly indicated as the probable evolutionary starting
point of our early human ancestors.
If we had started in a predominantly terrestrial habitat, why are our young unable to
walk and why do they cling to their mothers, without fur, for the first year of life? This,
combined with the aquatic adaptations demonstrated by our newborns, toddlers and adults,
seriously lacks coherence with a purely terrestrial habitat. Aquatically adapted babies reveal a
far more probable link to ancestral semi aquatic habitats. Figure 8 depicts, in my opinion what
possibly happened: maybe a significantly small ancestral population were isolated for a very
long period of time on the islands of an archipelago. Possibly, that way, a number of
diversified archaic groups were forced to adapt to semi aquatic habitats.
18
Figure 8. What possibly happened. © DM.
Although it may be said that some primates are partially semi-aquatic, they are never
so to the extent of being versatile fishers, waders, swimmers and divers like Homo sapiens.
This is worth noting because they are adapted to habitats possibly similar to those of our early
ancestors:
Proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), arboreal, endemic to the south-east Asian island of
Borneo (Malay and Kalimantan). In Kalimantan, it is called monyet belanda (‘Dutch
monkey’) or orang belanda (‘blanke man’) because Dutch and British colonisers had
somewhat similar noses and fat bellies.
Rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), native to South, Central and Southeast Asia, inhabiting a
variety of habitats: grasslands, arid and forested areas, and often close to human settlements.
They are regular swimmers, and babies as young as a few days old can swim. Adults are
known to be able to swim over half a mile to islands, but they are sometimes also found
drowned in places where they drink water.
Allen's swamp monkey (Allenopithecus nigroviridis), African Congo region. It has slight
webbing of fingers and toes which point to a partially aquatic life.
Brazza's monkey (Cercopithecus neglectus) endemic to central African wetlands. It is a
widespread African forest primate.
How, why, and since when have they used semi aquatic habitats?
The DNA gene sequences of humans and chimpanzees are nearly identical, but there
are differences in large sections of DNA near to ‘activated’ genes, which are highly varied.
Research indicates that differences between the two species can be attributed to these genomic
‘gaps’, comparable to viral sequences called retro-transposons, which seem to comprise about
50% of the genomes of Homo and Pongo.
This is what I suspected, and therefore my hypothesis about small populations isolated
on islands becomes viable. We have often seen in evolution aquatically isolated small
populations, which started to differ. A well-known example is how the very different habitats
of the Galapagos islands ‘dictated’ it, resulting in many different Darwin’s finches. After
millennia, adapted ancestors have provided us with still viable aquatic newborns, why not?
I failed to find anything in paleo-anthropology, or genetics, that makes it impossible
that bipedalism came first, combined with a very suitable semi-aquatic habitat combination of
wading, swimming and diving.
When our babies can, it indicates that they could have been early semi-aquatic
pioneers in the game of time. In those days, populations were very small. Fossilized baby
remains among paleontological finds, proving that I am either wrong or right, are hardly to be
expected.
The same can be said of finding hair, proving whether or not ancestors had fur. As usual,
‘Lucy’ is not depicted as totally naked, and if she were, it may offend her feelings.
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Hence, my arguments can only be based on living, fleshy, very young – and adult –
Homo sapiens. And I seriously defend my answer, “Well, maybe yes”, to Sir Alister Hardy’s
question in1960, “Was Man more aquatic in the past?” [15]. A conviction that is further
strengthened by the views of Elaine Morgan [25] in The Descent of Woman:
Most land animals can walk or even run within an hour of being born. But a newborn baby cannot
even crawl and is totally dependent on its mother. For this to happen it means that human babies had
to be able to evolve in very safe conditions.
An important aspect is the ‘floating’ reflex, which is compromised if babies and little
children are not brought into contact with water during the first four to six months, or up to
one year, after birth. If they have missed the aforementioned sensitive imprinting period, then
there is the real danger of little children drowning, as Eibl-Eibesfeldt mentioned [8].
Young babies and toddlers easily adapt to water within a few weeks. Consequently,
they have less fear in the presence of parents and react naturally to diving and swimming. In
their early years they demonstrate greater freedom of movement in aquatic conditions and
show increased coordination, compared to their land-bound counterparts.
Because training babies in swimming pools started only recently, the possibility of
strengthening reflexive adaptations was not fully recognized, and an ethological interpretation
was lacking. There is, nevertheless, controversy regarding the importance of baby and toddler
swimming in order to realize very young competent swimmers. Although better, safe
swimmers are generally not to be expected at more than four years of age. However, ‘natural’
early learning in an extended family setting has existed for a long time in our species and
possibly much longer in our hominin history.
Many children in extensive societies, because of age discrepancies, started swimming
lessons much later, and so either adapted with difficulty, or didn’t adapt at all; some never
learned to swim, and a lot of adults, even seamen, are unable to swim. This is a valid reason
to promote baby-swimming as a valuable activity everywhere.
However, this is no guarantee that every baby-swimming course provides safe
swimming and diving, despite the strong evidence in favour of quicker semi-aquatic
adaptation, and much more. It would be a real challenge for researchers to establish the
different outcomes related to time lags in the various age groups.
Another challenge would be to gather evidence of the ethological aquatic adaptations
of other mammals, to discover whether human newborns really are unique, even though
Homo sapiens babies seem to perform aquatic adaptations unlike any other hominin.
Chimpanzee and gorillas babies start to walk only a few months earlier than we do, but are
never able to acquire waterproof behaviour, even after many years. They have greater
freedom in terrestrial movements and increased coordination in their first ten to twelve
months. But there are absolutely no other examples of Primates with this distinct period
where there is a combination of ‘non walking’ though ‘aquatically able’. Hence, the
differences in the first year of life between the land-bound hominin babies of Chimpanzees,
Gorillas, and our own aquatic free moving ones, are really quite remarkable.
Of course, the countless variations in the physical possibilities of Homo sapiens were
described by Eibl-Eibesfeldt [9] when citing Konrad Lorenz: “Konrad Lorenz (1943) once
characterized man as the specialist in the unspecialised, a reference to human universality
how man is superior to all other animals in versatility.” However, one of Eibl-Eibefeldt's
statements when discussing Lorenz is particularly relevant (cursive typeface: Meijers):
Using the example of the following imaginary athletics competition, he showed how man is superior
to all other animals in versatility. If the contest consisted of sprinting 100 m, diving into a pond and
retrieving three objects from a depth of 5 m, then swimming 100 m toward a rope at the other bank,
20
climbing 5 m up the rope, and finally walking an additional 10 km, any untrained physically fit adult,
even older individuals, could execute the task, where no other vertebrate could perform it.
The conclusion at that stage was that the aquatic part did not fit within a generally
accepted terrestrially adapted ancestral hominin, but the tide is definitely turning: David W.
Cameron and Colin P. Grooves in The Emergence of Ardipithecus and Early
Australopithecines [5] wrote:
Nor can we exclude the Aquatic ape Hypothesis (AAT) Elaine Morgan has long argued that many
aspects of human anatomy are best explained as a legacy of a semi aquatic phase in the proto-human
trajectory, and this includes upright posture to cope with increased water depth as our ancestors
foraged farther and further from the lake or seashore. At first, this idea was simply ignored as
grotesque, and perhaps unworthy because proposed by an amateur. But Morgan’s latest arguments
have reached a sophistication that simply demand to be taken seriously (Morgan, 1990, 1997). And
although the authors shade away from more speculative reconstructions in favour of phylogenetic
scenarios, we insist that the AAT takes its place in the battery of possible functional scenarios of
hominin divergence.
The best reconstruction proposed, in my view, can be found in The Evolution of
Hominid Bipedalism by Michael J. Friedman [11]:
Paleoanthropologists mark the divergence between apes and hominids with the adaptation of
bipedalism five to six million years ago. In this paper, I argue that while the first upright hominids
occurred in this time frame, the process of becoming a fully efficient biped took much longer and was
not complete until Homo erectus at 1.8 million years ago. To provide context to the puzzle of how and
why our ancestors evolved upright walking, I examine many of the prevailing theories of bipedal
origins, including the aquatic ape hypothesis, heat hypothesis, and the carrying hypothesis.
Conclusion
The waterproof innate ‘reflexes’ of newborns are essentially unique features of our
own species, not observed in any other hominin (Pan, Gorilla). This is so in natural behaviour
in all later stages of development, to pubertal and adult maturity. These physiological and
physical reflexes encompass: floating, controlling breath when submerged, early swimming
movement, diving and playing in and near water.
Research confirms that baby-swimming not only makes babies waterproof, but also
enhances: locomotion, early social interaction, self-confidence, independence, and coping
with new unfamiliar situations. These special developments are connected to innate
psychomotor and social abilities in the first year of life.
The behaviour of babies is ethologically based on genetically fixed innate ‘neural
templates’ activated in a defined, sensitive period, and the success of imprinting is guaranteed
when innate waterproof reflexes are combined and triggered. Young babies and toddlers
easily adapt to water within a few weeks, and this sensitive period is effective from four
months – or even earlier if the baby is exposed to water sooner – to a year, when carried out
with the interaction of parents and other related individuals.
Aquatic dynamics experienced in early life guarantee greater activity in aquatic
situations later on. I repeat, Homo sapiens babies are performing these aquatic adaptations
while no other hominin species are able to do so, neither newborn nor adult: Gorilla (Gorilla),
Chimpanzee and Bonobo (Pan).
Human offspring are unable to walk before eight to twelve months after birth.
Although newborns and little children can not swim, they adapt very quickly to free
movement in water before that time, performing functional aquatic activities and this process
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is linked to quicker development in many ways.
It is undeniable that the completely terrestrial hominin babies of Chimpanzees and
Gorillas can not be compared with the terrestrial AND aquatic adapted Homo sapiens babies
in the first year of life. Every member of our extended family of Primates has fur. We alone
became the naked swimmers, diving, walking, singing and killing.
And we alone have remained semi-aquatic, maybe because we can sing, swim AND
vigorously kill our kin…
The hypothesis can be accepted
By displaying the ability to float, swim and dive in the first months after birth, human
babies and toddlers are proof of successful aquatic adaptation.
These inbuilt potentials are triggered in a genetically preset sensitive period, which
starts in the newborn and lasts for about a year. It quickens development and the learning of
physical, physiological, emotional, social and functional properties in babies and toddlers.
Innate adaptations to aquatic conditions are not known in any other hominin, Pan and Gorilla.
This proves our ancestral heritage and provides a possible argument for responding “yes” to
Sir Alister Hardy’s question posed in 1960.
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