Earliest evidence of kissing pushed back 1,000 years

By Sophie Lund Rasmussen, Postdoctoral fellow, University of Oxford
Troels Pank Arbøll, Assistant Professor in Assyriology, University of Copenhagen

Lip kissing is an act that’s so natural and common in many present-day societies it is easily taken for granted. But it’s not actually clear whether people have always been kissing, or whether its origins lie in the relatively recent past.

It turns out that the history and causes for kissing are more complex than anticipated. In an article published in the journal Science, we analysed substantial amounts of overlooked evidence that challenge current beliefs that the…

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