The familiar running story
A widely discussed 2004 Nature paper examined how unusually capable humans are at sustained running, despite being poor sprinters compared with many four-legged animals. Bramble and Lieberman argued that anatomical and physiological features associated with endurance running may have contributed to the evolution of the genus Homo. That older paper provides background, not a new September discovery. [3]
An evolutionary explanation must do more than show that a feature is useful now. It must address when that feature appeared and which pressures favoured it. Present-day usefulness is a clue to investigate, not a time machine.
The new proposal
A hypothesis released on 17 September by researchers Joordens and Schagatay suggests an earlier role for shallow-water foraging and endurance diving. Their PaleoAnthropology paper considers whether traits involved in oxygen management and repeated diving could later have supported endurance on land. [1, 2]
The proposal draws on several kinds of evidence, including physiology, fossils and observations of present-day diving communities. It does not claim that modern divers are unchanged replicas of early humans. Nor do the authors propose that humans became fully aquatic. [1, 2]
One feature, more than one job
To see the logic, imagine finding an old tool in a workshop. It currently opens paint tins. That does not prove it was originally designed for paint tins. A feature can acquire a useful new role after it has appeared.
In evolution, that distinction makes a possible 'diving first, running later' sequence interesting. It offers a different account of how a capacity could arise and then be useful elsewhere. But an appealing sequence still needs evidence that distinguishes it from competing sequences.
What would make the idea stronger?
The authors present a hypothesis rather than a direct test establishing its historical sequence. The useful next step is to ask which observations would favour it over alternatives. Evidence about relevant traits, their timing and the environments early humans occupied would have to fit together. [2]
Suppose a feature is helpful for both activities. That observation alone cannot decide which activity helped favour it first. A convincing explanation needs more than a list of shared benefits; it needs a chronology and predictions that another explanation would struggle to match.
How to enjoy an unsettled idea
A new hypothesis can be valuable before it is confirmed because it reorganises questions. Here it asks researchers to examine connections between oxygen management, foraging and endurance. The reader's task is to keep the proposal's creativity separate from its confidence level.
We can be curious without declaring a winner. The interesting question is not whether a vivid shoreline scene feels plausible, but what evidence would make that scene more likely than a competing account.
What to keep in mind
The diving-first account is a hypothesis, not an established account of human origins. Modern diving ability does not prove ancestral behaviour. The September paper and announcement are new; the endurance-running paper is explicitly historical background.
Sources & context
Numbered references link the explanation to its sources. Hypothetical examples and visual metaphors are labelled in the text. Checked 3 October 2026.
- Max Planck: Endurance running or endurance diving?
- PaleoAnthropology: Original endurance-diving hypothesis paper
- Nature: Endurance running and the evolution of Homo (2004)
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