page_title: Elaine Morgan
section_title: Aquatic ape hypothesis
hierarchical_section_title: Elaine Morgan / Aquatic ape hypothesis
caption_attribution_description: English: This is my photograph of delegates to the Aquatic Ape Conference held in Valkenburg, Netherlands in August 1987.
context_page_description: Elaine Morgan OBE, FRSL, was a Welsh writer for television and the author of several books on evolutionary anthropology, especially the aquatic ape hypothesis which she advocated as a corrective to what she saw as theories which purveyed gendered stereotypes and thus failed to adequately take account of women’s role in human evolution. The Descent of Woman, published in 1972, became an international bestseller translated into ten languages. In 2016, she was named one of "the 50 greatest Welsh men and women of all time" in a press survey.
context_section_description: Morgan has promoted a version of the Aquatic ape hypothesis, which proposes that human evolution had an "aquatic phase" in the Miocene or Pliocene epoch.
  Morgan's first publication was mentioned by E. O. Wilson in 1975, comparing it to other "advocacy approaches" such as The Imperial Animal as an "inevitable feminist" counter, but describing the method as less scientific than other contemporary hypotheses.
  Morgan's version of the Aquatic ape hypothesis has achieved popular appeal, but is generally ignored by anthropologists and criticized in the scientific community.
caption: The Delegates of the Aquatic Ape Symposium 1987
  Elaine Morgan is to the right of Machteld (Maggie) Roede, a conference organiser who is at the front.
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