The aquatic ape hypothesis, originally due to the marine biologist Alister Hardy, holds that human evolution included a phase in which humans were adapted to a marine environment, citing as evidence such distinctive human features as the reduction of body hair, the unusual amount of subcutaneous fat, and the diving reflex.

Morgan wrote a series of books advancing and defending her idiosyncratic views on human evolution, including The Descent of Woman (Souvenir Press, 1972), The Aquatic Ape (Stein & Day, 1982), The Scars of Evolution (Souvenir Press, 1990), The Descent of the Child (Oxford University Press, 1995), The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis (Souvenir Press, 1997), and The Naked Darwinist (Eildon Press, 2008). A fruitful mating of Women's Lib with the (still highly conjectural) science of ethnology which may make even the Naked Ape in professorial garb sit up and take notice.The writer Elaine Morgan, known for her advocacy of the 'aquatic ape' hypothesis of human evolution, died on July 12, 2013, at the age of 92, according to the BBC (July 12, 2013).

Among her conclusions: Daddy (who was never the great provider anyway) ''horned in on the matrifocal family group'' because he needed the economic security of home and hearth more than she did. Morgan offers some highly intriguing hypotheses on the evolution of the nuclear family, male pair-bonding, monogamy, and language supported by deft citations of current research on the social behavior of primates and others. The evolution of She links us to some pretty exotic creatures including the sea cow, the dolphin, and the mantee, but although her ethnology (and prose style) is rather free-wheeling it is more than just good sport.

While swimming around in those ancient lakes She lost her fur, first used pebble tools, first cried through tear ducts, learned to frown and pis aller switched over from rear-mounting to ventro-ventral sex.

Morgan's major target as she traces the descent of the ''fruit-eater, She'' is Robert Ardrey's aggressive, weapon-wielding Primal Hunter whose contribution to the evolution of Homo Sapiens is ingeniously undermined by her contention that hominoid development passed through an ''aquatic'' age during which we acquired everythink except a snorkel and flippers. A kinky distaff view of evolution which won't satisfy Darwin's male progeny but does compellingly suggest that the whole ''androcentric'' science may need revision.

The descent of woman by elaine morgan