First Kiss Dates Back 21 Million Years, Study Finds Neanderthals Also Kissed
New research suggests kissing began with ancient apes, long before Homo sapiens evolved – and that Neanderthals almost certainly locked lips too. A 21‑Million‑Year‑Old Love Story Your “first kiss” suddenly feels very recent. A new evolutionary study has traced the origins of kissing back at least 16.9–21.5 million years, to the common ancestor of today’s great apes. That means the behavior predates Homo sapiens by tens of millions of years and likely appeared when our lineage was still a tree‑dwelling ape somewhere in the Miocene. Sci.News: Breaking Science News+1 The work, led by Matilda Brindle of the University of Oxford