Neanderthals and early humans ‘likely to have kissed’, say scientists | Neanderthals

From Galapagos albatross to polar bears, chimpanzees to orangutans, some species seem to kiss each other. Now, researchers suggest Neanderthals did it too – and may even have locked lips with modern humans.

This isn’t the first time scientists have suggested that Neanderthals and early modern humans knew each other intimately. Among previous studies, researchers found that humans and their thick-browed cousins ​​shared the same oral microbe for hundreds of thousands of years after the two species split, suggesting they exchanged saliva.

Dr Matilda Brindle, an evolutionary biologist and first author of the new study from the University of Oxford, said that although various theories had been proposed, the new work supported a simple explanation.

“They were probably kissing,” she said, adding that the idea echoed research that found humans of non-African ancestry had bits of Neanderthal DNA in their genome, revealing that interbreeding was at play.

“It certainly puts a more romantic spin on the relationships between humans and Neanderthals,” Brindle said.

Writing in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, Brindle and his colleagues report how, to investigate the evolutionary origins of kissing, they first had to find a definition that wasn’t limited to how humans kiss.

“There have been some previous attempts to define kissing, but it’s very human-centric, meaning other animals don’t kiss. Now we know they probably do, it might not look exactly like what a human kiss looks like,” Brindle said.

However, she said some behaviors that resembled kissing were something rather different – like chewing and food transfer, or “kissing fights”, seen in fish known as French grunts.

As a result, the team proposed a definition of kissing based on friendly interactions involving direct mouth-to-mouth contact with a member of the same species, with some mouth movement but no transfer of food.

Brindle said they focused on reports of kissing in African and Asian primates, including bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans, and used YouTube videos to confirm those reports.

The researchers then combined this data with information on the evolutionary relationships between living and extinct species of these primates.

The team says the results suggest kissing evolved between 21.5 and 16.9 million years ago in the ancestors of great apes.

Neanderthals’ position on this family tree means it’s likely they, too, engaged in kissing, researchers say. But this behavior may not have been limited to their own species.

“The fact that humans kissed, the fact that we have now shown that Neanderthals most likely kissed, indicates that both [species] are also likely to have kissed,” Brindle added.

Although the evolutionary explanation is debated, Brindle said kissing could be used in sexual contexts to potentially increase reproductive success or help choose between partners, while it could help strengthen bonds when used platonically.

Dr Jake Brooker, an expert on ape behavior at Durham University who was not involved in the work, said that as kissing behavior was seen in a wide range of apes, it made sense that its origins lay deep in our evolutionary past, and that an analysis of different forms of kissing across a wider variety of species could push its origins back even earlier.

“Things that we consider signatures of human life, like kissing, are not unique to us if we look closely at other animals,” he said.

Penny Spikins, professor of the archeology of human origins at the University of York, said the kiss had a cultural element because it was not common to all societies.

“Nevertheless, as human beings we thrive or fail on the strength of our emotional connections, and ways to promote trust and intimacy will have been important for millions of years,” she said. “It’s perhaps an image that seems a little incongruous to our misplaced ideas about a rather ruthless and aggressive past, but it really should be no surprise that Neanderthals – and even Neanderthals and our own species together – kissed each other.”