According to a thorough new study, scientists found when and how human kissing developed as a symbolic representation of love. We get this from grooming behaviors observed in ancestral great apes.
Across all civilizations and societies, people have used kisses as a flexible means to express closeness, affection, or social bonding. This happens usually in ways that are governed by cultural norms. According to research released last year, one of the first known locations where kissing was a “well-established practice” was Mesopotamia. This culture is about 4,500 years old.
Kissing was seen as a component of closeness in early human societies that resided between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Present-day Iraq and Syria, according to thousands of clay tablets that have been found.
But it’s still up for debate how exactly our species started using this method to express affection. According to one idea, kissing originated from parental care practices like premastication. It means that parents feed their babies food that has already been chewed.
According to another, the practice has developed into a sort of compatibility test whereby prospective partners sampled and tasted one another orally. To investigate the origins of this intimate behavior in humans, researchers thoroughly reviewed the existing theories in the new study that was published in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology.
The investigation also examined similarities between human kissing and related behaviors in the animal kingdom. Scientists found when and how human kissing evolved after getting to know that our hairy ape ancestors used projecting lips and a small amount of suction to remove parasites or dirt as their last grooming technique. This last move, which scientists refer to as the “groomer’s final kiss,” may have remained a “vestigial action” with little sanitary significance even though humans evolved to have less body hair.
They claim that the context and purpose of contemporary human kissing are mirrored in this act of extending lips and suction.
Researchers argue that kissing is probably the conserved last mouth-contact stage of a grooming session, when the groomer sucks with protruding lips on the groomed’s fur or skin to latch on detritus or a parasite, according to great ape social behavior.
According to this idea, scientists hypothesize that kissing originated among the ape ancestors of modern humans when they began to spend a significant amount of time on the ground away from trees. Scientist found, this might have happened “only after” ancient climatic change caused the ecosystem to move from forested habitats to drier and more open landscapes.
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