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> Recent research has hypothesized that the earliest evidence of human lip kissing originated in a very specific geographical location in South Asia 3,500 years

> Recent research has hypothesized that the earliest evidence of human lip kissing originated in a very specific geographical location in South Asia 3,500 years ago, from where it may have spread to other regions, simultaneously accelerating the spread of the herpes simplex virus 1. I find the implied thought process here hilarious: the first stone tool industry is three million years old [1], fire a million years, modern humans 300,000, and agriculture about 10,000 years old. But kissing? Yeah that’s gotta be high tech invented 4,500 years ago, a hundred years before the Egyptians gods invented felatio [2]. Yeah that tracks. At what point can we say without concrete scientific evidence that the likeliest scenario is that we were too busy making out for tens of thousands of years to record the invention of kissing? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldowan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldowan [2] https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/worlds-first-documented-blowjob-58a9b90abb21 https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/worlds-first-documen... Edit: thank you for the correction on age of controlled fire

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ye-olde-sysrq 3y ago
That was the prior research and hypothesis, which the article claims this new finding supercedes, moving it back an additional 1000 years. Also the new research doesn't claim that's when it started, it's just the earliest record. It even mentions further down that kissing is seen in primates, suggesting that humans have potentially always kissed. (It of course just took us a while to develop art and preservation thereof enough that we could both record it and have that recording survive to the current day).
- ComplexSystems 3y ago
  It does seem to claim that's when it started, and attributes an increase in the spread of HSV to the introduction of kissing.
  - SiempreViernes 3y ago
    No, the linked article is a summary of another article written to contradict the earlier researchers that made the claim about HSV spread being connected to the practice of kissing.
    - vlovich123 3y ago
      Yeah. I find it far more likely that HSV just emerged to transmit through kissing like Monkey Pox virus or HIV just “spontaneously” came about as an STI that could take advantage of existing human sex practices. I find it unlikely that a new human behavior is going to suddenly transmit a new disease. Humans naturally tend to quarantine such behaviors that directly spread disease in this way.
- vlovich123 3y ago
  Earliest surviving record. Evolution takes a very very long time. I’d take a bet (if we had a magical oracle) that likely some people have been recording their kissing and/or sexual exploits for a very very long time. Technology changes the expression but not really so much the message, sentiment, or desires. > An ancient wine jug depicting a customer and a sex worker (a money pouch is hanging on the wall) dated between 480 and 470 B.C.E. Greece. Sure more recent but that’s because things from Ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt survived. Most of the other stuff from more ancient civilizations just didn’t. Do we really think humans spontaneously decided 4k years ago “hey I like this sex thing - maybe I should write it down”? > A clay plaque depicting a couple copulating. Old Babylonian Period, 2nd millennium B.C.E. Mesopotamia (Iraq). https://allthatsinteresting.com/erotic-art https://allthatsinteresting.com/erotic-art
burnished 3y ago
Look, when some one says that the earth moved, it didn't leave a geological record. They checked.
- hnfong 3y ago
  On that note, the tectonic plate theory took geologists a couple decades to accept..
kbelder 3y ago
Finding and documenting the earliest evidence of kissing is legitimate research, and good on them. But, yes, making even the slightest assumption that this evidence is related at all to the actual origin of kissing is ridiculous. I think researchers are very reluctant to add "of course, it obviously started 100,000 years earlier, we just don't have direct evidence" to their papers. That tacit acceptance that lack of evidence is evidence of a lack shows up in a lot of different fields, like cosmology, even our response to COVID. I get that researchers don't want to add speculation to their publications, but overstating the certainty of evidence isn't good either. We all need some Bayesian initial priors set.
- cjohnson318 3y ago
  One data point is that of all creatures, only bonobos and humans kiss. Humans don't seem to learn the concept of a kiss until at least a year, and even then it's more of a mirroring gesture. It seems like a much higher level social construct than smiling, laughing, nuzzling, etc.
  - bitcurious 3y ago
    I guess I’m not sure what makes a human kiss distinct from a dog licking another dog’s face, for example.
    - cjohnson318 3y ago
      Well, dogs also lick their paws when they're nervous, their wounds, and their butts. They lick us, and we interpret it as a kiss, but who really knows what why.
- deleted 3y ago
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simonh 3y ago
Nitpick. Fire probably goes back a million years or more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_hum...
francisofascii 3y ago
Right. One of our closest relatives, the bonobo, also kiss.
- zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
  Also known for their unique handshakes
  - bonzini 3y ago
    Like this? https://youtu.be/Ub9Ed7AFlvw?t=15 https://youtu.be/Ub9Ed7AFlvw?t=15
  - sph 3y ago
    Probably something sexual... I was reading on bonobos recently, and how female bonobos quickly rub their clitorises together to greet one another. It is really fascinating how sex is a huge part of their culture.
facorreia 3y ago
I agree. This is a common logical fallacy. The absence of proof is not proof of absence. a) There's no way to prove that this was the earliest recorded kiss. Others may have been recorded but they haven't been found (or the record has been destroyed). b) Of course as pointed out in the thread, the "earliest recorded kiss" is not the same as "the earliest kiss". A better title would be "Earliest recovered record of a kiss is from 4,500 years ago".
- sgc 3y ago
  This is all nitpicking about something every archeologist and historian understands. When they say earliest recorded kiss, they mean earliest currently recorded kiss, that we know about. Time before writing is called prehistory - and that is different for different regions of the world. Nobody thinks that means nothing happened or people were not thinking before that time. Just that we don't know what happened beyond non-linguistic inference. I don't think this shorthand causes any sort of imprecision among archeologists, and really all outside observers understand as well - hence the somewhat unnecessary nitpicking.
  - hnfong 3y ago
    The language is unfortunate. For this case specifically the meaning is clear, but often the shorthand gets translated into concrete statements of facts in a more general context, eg. "humans started doing _____ 5000 years ago", whereas what they really mean "the earliest known evidence of humans doing _____ is 5000 years ago". And as other comments in this thread seem to indicate, even claiming that human kissing could have gone on (unrecorded) for millions of years is disputed. So how is anyone supposed to interpret this new "finding"? Should we think kissing only happened for a couple thousands of years (and probably not more than that)? If that's what we're supposed to conclude, I think these short hands are actively harmful, because they purport to tell people information whereas IMHO it shouldn't inform us of anything at all.
    - sgc 3y ago
      In this case it is a bit obvious, but often what an archeological find of this type tells us, is that something was important enough in that society for an artist to take the time to make a relief depicting it. It is not so much "people were kissing", but that "people were celebrating kissing as an integral part of copulation" at that time, showing that society appreciated the intimacy, rather than just treating it as the more animal pump and dump, then get on with your day.
aidenn0 3y ago
Yes, I think the researchers behind the work TFA is talking about also finds it hilarious, but "that's stupid" is less publishable than "we found a counterexample in the archaeological record (and also that's stupid)"
pessimizer 3y ago
I don't think there's any more reason to think that we've been kissing forever than to think we've been nodding up and down for "yes" and side to side for "no" forever. There are many people in the world who do not kiss, or who nod up and down for "no" and side to side for yes. Just because a behavior is shared by 99% of people doesn't make it necessarily intrinsic, or even historically likely or useful. Also, as far as I can tell from anthropological films of rural tribes/bands with less contact, none of them ever kiss. Mouths that aren't constantly scrubbed out are gross.
- FeepingCreature 3y ago
  I think up and down for yes and side to side for no makes genuinely more sense, though? A vertical line for "yes" and a horizontal line for "no", corresponding to an open and a blocked path forward. Is there a similar intuitive explanation for the reverse?
amluto 3y ago
The rest of the article doesn’t make this argument at all, and even the paragraph you wrote is IMO merely weirdly written. It says “ the earliest evidence of human lip kissing originated in a very specific geographical location”, which is precisely what they mean. It’s absurd because of course the earliest anything found at an archaeological site came from a very specific geographical location.
082349872349872 3y ago
On the linguistic side, Proto-Indo European does have reconstructed roots for "women and their suitors", but I don't know if we have making out in general or kissing specifically. cf https://blog.oup.com/2014/09/kiss-word-origin-etymology/ https://blog.oup.com/2014/09/kiss-word-origin-etymology/
andrepd 3y ago
I find your thought process hilarious as well, as you seem to assume the obvious facts you're stating completely flew past the researchers x) If you read the article, you'll see the claim is earliest recorded kiss, not earliest kiss, as the researchers point out even other animals do it.

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ye-olde-sysrq 3y ago

That was the prior research and hypothesis, which the article claims this new finding supercedes, moving it back an additional 1000 years. Also the new research doesn't claim that's when it started, it's just the earliest record. It even mentions further down that kissing is seen in primates, suggesting that humans have potentially always kissed. (It of course just took us a while to develop art and preservation thereof enough that we could both record it and have that recording survive to the current day).

ComplexSystems 3y ago
It does seem to claim that's when it started, and attributes an increase in the spread of HSV to the introduction of kissing.
- SiempreViernes 3y ago
  No, the linked article is a summary of another article written to contradict the earlier researchers that made the claim about HSV spread being connected to the practice of kissing.
  - vlovich123 3y ago
    Yeah. I find it far more likely that HSV just emerged to transmit through kissing like Monkey Pox virus or HIV just “spontaneously” came about as an STI that could take advantage of existing human sex practices. I find it unlikely that a new human behavior is going to suddenly transmit a new disease. Humans naturally tend to quarantine such behaviors that directly spread disease in this way.
vlovich123 3y ago
Earliest surviving record. Evolution takes a very very long time. I’d take a bet (if we had a magical oracle) that likely some people have been recording their kissing and/or sexual exploits for a very very long time. Technology changes the expression but not really so much the message, sentiment, or desires. > An ancient wine jug depicting a customer and a sex worker (a money pouch is hanging on the wall) dated between 480 and 470 B.C.E. Greece. Sure more recent but that’s because things from Ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt survived. Most of the other stuff from more ancient civilizations just didn’t. Do we really think humans spontaneously decided 4k years ago “hey I like this sex thing - maybe I should write it down”? > A clay plaque depicting a couple copulating. Old Babylonian Period, 2nd millennium B.C.E. Mesopotamia (Iraq). https://allthatsinteresting.com/erotic-art https://allthatsinteresting.com/erotic-art

burnished 3y ago

Look, when some one says that the earth moved, it didn't leave a geological record. They checked.

hnfong 3y ago
On that note, the tectonic plate theory took geologists a couple decades to accept..

kbelder 3y ago

Finding and documenting the earliest evidence of kissing is legitimate research, and good on them. But, yes, making even the slightest assumption that this evidence is related at all to the actual origin of kissing is ridiculous. I think researchers are very reluctant to add "of course, it obviously started 100,000 years earlier, we just don't have direct evidence" to their papers. That tacit acceptance that lack of evidence is evidence of a lack shows up in a lot of different fields, like cosmology, even our response to COVID. I get that researchers don't want to add speculation to their publications, but overstating the certainty of evidence isn't good either. We all need some Bayesian initial priors set.

cjohnson318 3y ago
One data point is that of all creatures, only bonobos and humans kiss. Humans don't seem to learn the concept of a kiss until at least a year, and even then it's more of a mirroring gesture. It seems like a much higher level social construct than smiling, laughing, nuzzling, etc.
- bitcurious 3y ago
  I guess I’m not sure what makes a human kiss distinct from a dog licking another dog’s face, for example.
  - cjohnson318 3y ago
    Well, dogs also lick their paws when they're nervous, their wounds, and their butts. They lick us, and we interpret it as a kiss, but who really knows what why.
deleted 3y ago
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simonh 3y ago

Nitpick. Fire probably goes back a million years or more. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_humans https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_of_fire_by_early_hum...

francisofascii 3y ago

Right. One of our closest relatives, the bonobo, also kiss.

zoklet-enjoyer 3y ago
Also known for their unique handshakes
- bonzini 3y ago
  Like this? https://youtu.be/Ub9Ed7AFlvw?t=15 https://youtu.be/Ub9Ed7AFlvw?t=15
- sph 3y ago
  Probably something sexual... I was reading on bonobos recently, and how female bonobos quickly rub their clitorises together to greet one another. It is really fascinating how sex is a huge part of their culture.

facorreia 3y ago

I agree. This is a common logical fallacy. The absence of proof is not proof of absence. a) There's no way to prove that this was the earliest recorded kiss. Others may have been recorded but they haven't been found (or the record has been destroyed). b) Of course as pointed out in the thread, the "earliest recorded kiss" is not the same as "the earliest kiss". A better title would be "Earliest recovered record of a kiss is from 4,500 years ago".

sgc 3y ago
This is all nitpicking about something every archeologist and historian understands. When they say earliest recorded kiss, they mean earliest currently recorded kiss, that we know about. Time before writing is called prehistory - and that is different for different regions of the world. Nobody thinks that means nothing happened or people were not thinking before that time. Just that we don't know what happened beyond non-linguistic inference. I don't think this shorthand causes any sort of imprecision among archeologists, and really all outside observers understand as well - hence the somewhat unnecessary nitpicking.
- hnfong 3y ago
  The language is unfortunate. For this case specifically the meaning is clear, but often the shorthand gets translated into concrete statements of facts in a more general context, eg. "humans started doing _____ 5000 years ago", whereas what they really mean "the earliest known evidence of humans doing _____ is 5000 years ago". And as other comments in this thread seem to indicate, even claiming that human kissing could have gone on (unrecorded) for millions of years is disputed. So how is anyone supposed to interpret this new "finding"? Should we think kissing only happened for a couple thousands of years (and probably not more than that)? If that's what we're supposed to conclude, I think these short hands are actively harmful, because they purport to tell people information whereas IMHO it shouldn't inform us of anything at all.
  - sgc 3y ago
    In this case it is a bit obvious, but often what an archeological find of this type tells us, is that something was important enough in that society for an artist to take the time to make a relief depicting it. It is not so much "people were kissing", but that "people were celebrating kissing as an integral part of copulation" at that time, showing that society appreciated the intimacy, rather than just treating it as the more animal pump and dump, then get on with your day.

aidenn0 3y ago

Yes, I think the researchers behind the work TFA is talking about also finds it hilarious, but "that's stupid" is less publishable than "we found a counterexample in the archaeological record (and also that's stupid)"

pessimizer 3y ago

I don't think there's any more reason to think that we've been kissing forever than to think we've been nodding up and down for "yes" and side to side for "no" forever. There are many people in the world who do not kiss, or who nod up and down for "no" and side to side for yes. Just because a behavior is shared by 99% of people doesn't make it necessarily intrinsic, or even historically likely or useful. Also, as far as I can tell from anthropological films of rural tribes/bands with less contact, none of them ever kiss. Mouths that aren't constantly scrubbed out are gross.

FeepingCreature 3y ago
I think up and down for yes and side to side for no makes genuinely more sense, though? A vertical line for "yes" and a horizontal line for "no", corresponding to an open and a blocked path forward. Is there a similar intuitive explanation for the reverse?

amluto 3y ago

The rest of the article doesn’t make this argument at all, and even the paragraph you wrote is IMO merely weirdly written. It says “ the earliest evidence of human lip kissing originated in a very specific geographical location”, which is precisely what they mean. It’s absurd because of course the earliest anything found at an archaeological site came from a very specific geographical location.

082349872349872 3y ago

On the linguistic side, Proto-Indo European does have reconstructed roots for "women and their suitors", but I don't know if we have making out in general or kissing specifically. cf https://blog.oup.com/2014/09/kiss-word-origin-etymology/ https://blog.oup.com/2014/09/kiss-word-origin-etymology/

andrepd 3y ago

I find your thought process hilarious as well, as you seem to assume the obvious facts you're stating completely flew past the researchers x) If you read the article, you'll see the claim is earliest recorded kiss, not earliest kiss, as the researchers point out even other animals do it.