Scientists Say Kissing Is Millions of Years Old
trace back: to follow something to learn where it started or came from
A new study says that kissing is much older than previously thought and it didn’t start with people. Researchers studied this behaviour in many different animals to understand where it came from. They found kiss-like behaviour in wolves, prairie dogs, polar bears, and even albatrosses. One part of their research described polar bear kisses as very sloppy with lots of tongue.
The team classified kissing as mouth-on-mouth contact without transferring food. Using this definition, they found that humans, chimps, and bonobos all kiss. The researchers were able to trace kissing back to large apes that lived more than 21 million years ago.
The study also says that Neanderthals likely kissed. They found that humans and Neanderthals shared an oral microbe. Dr Brindle said “they must have been swapping saliva for hundreds of thousands of years after the two species split.”
This research cannot explain why kissing began. Dr Brindle said it is something “we share with our non-human relatives” and that it deserves more study.
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