How old is the history of kissing? Scientists have discovered such a mystery

 How old is the history of kissing? Scientists have discovered such a mystery

Scientists have discovered that kissing began about 55 million years ago in great apes.

Humans and some animals kiss, including monkeys and polar bears. How old is this way of expressing affection?

Researchers have discovered when and how kissing began. The study claims that kissing by closing the mouth began about 55 million years ago. According to this, the common ancestor of humans and great apes also did the same.

The same study also found that Neanderthals, the 'cave men', also kissed, and it is possible that humans and Neanderthals may have kissed each other.

Why scientists research kissing is a mystery in itself. Why do people kiss? Kissing is neither necessary for survival, nor does it play a direct role in producing offspring. Yet it is present in almost every human culture in the world, even in animals.

After seeing kissing in animals other than humans, scientists created a ‘family tree’ of its evolution and found out when it began.

The aim was to compare different species. They gave a very precise and non-romantic definition of kissing.

Kissing began about 55 million years ago

The study report is published in the journal ‘Evolution and Human Behavior’. They defined kissing as ‘contact with each other’s mouths, which is not intended to be aggressive and involves some movement of the lips or mouth. One condition is that neither person is feeding the other with their mouth.

“Humans, chimpanzees and bonobos all kiss,” said lead researcher Dr. Matilda Brindle from the University of Oxford. She concludes that the most recent common ancestor of all three probably also kissed.

“We believe kissing originated in great apes about 55 million years ago,” says Dr. Brindle.

In this study, scientists found that kissing, according to their scientific definition, is also seen in wolves, prairie dogs, polar bears, which use their tongues excessively, and albatrosses.

Their focus was on primates, especially great apes, to get to the roots of human kissing. The same research also revealed that Neanderthals were our closest and oldest relatives. They also kissed, which went extinct about 40,000 years ago.

Why it started is unclear

A previous study looked at Neanderthal DNA. This study showed that a specific bacteria found in the mouths of both modern humans and Neanderthals was the same.

Dr. “This clearly means that the two species continued to exchange saliva for millions of years after they diverged,” Brindle says.

The new study tells us when kissing began, but it doesn’t explain why. There are already many theories about it. Some say it evolved from our ape ancestors’ habit of cleaning off body lice. Others say it was an easy way to check a partner’s health and compatibility.

Dr. Brindle hopes the study will open up new avenues for answering that question. “It’s important for us to understand that this is not just a form of human romance, but that our nonhuman relatives do it too. It shouldn’t just be dismissed as ‘love nonsense’; it should be studied seriously.”