"'While kissing may seem like an ordinary or universal behaviour, it is only documented in 46 per cent of human cultures,' said study author Catherine Talbot, a professor at Florida Institute of Technology. 'The social norms and context vary widely across societies, raising the question of whether kissing is an evolved behaviour or cultural invention. 'This is the first step in addressing that question.'"
"Kissing occurs in a variety of animals such as monkeys, polar bears, wolves and even albatrosses, while other animals have equivalent behaviours like nose-touching and head-tapping. For modern humans, kissing is usually an integral part of the mating experience that appears to be controlled as much by biological urges as sex itself. But the researchers call kissing 'an evolutionary puzzle' as it appears to carry high risks, such as disease transmission, while offering no obvious reproductive or survival advantages."
Evidence indicates Homo sapiens and Neanderthals engaged in mouth-to-mouth kissing around 50,000 years ago. Neanderthals lived in Europe and Western Asia from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. Interbreeding between the species left Neanderthal DNA in contemporary humans. Kissing is documented in roughly 46 percent of human cultures and displays wide variation in social norms and context. Mouth-to-mouth contact and analogous behaviours occur across many animal species and primates. Kissing presents risks such as disease transmission and shows no obvious reproductive or survival advantages. Archaeological remains cannot directly record kissing, so primate observation data were used.
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