It's one of the most primitive human impulses, but the exact reason we kiss has intrigued scientists for centuries.
Now, a researcher has a new theory, and it may make you think twice before leaning in for a kiss.
Professor Adriano Lameira, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Warwick, says kissing has its origins in our furry human ancestors millions of years ago.
The act of sucking very lightly with pursed lips was once a clever technique for removing ticks and lice from others' fur, he argues.
Only a few million years ago did it begin to acquire sexual connotations and become an act that preceded mating.
Other theories about why we kiss range from hardening our immune system by exchanging bacteria to a form of “sniffing” for social inspection.
But this hypothesis – known as “the hairdresser's last kiss” – adds a new evolutionary origin to the human kiss, represented on the big screen for more than 100 years.
In the photo, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford) kiss in 'The Empire Strikes Back' (1980)
Humans are apes, and our closest living relatives include gorillas and chimpanzees (pictured)
In her new study, published in Evolutionary Anthropology, Professor Lameira (@lameira_adriano) says that the kiss is another relic of our evolutionary past.
Millions of years ago, a light sucking action with protruding lips would have been an essential form of grooming to remove parasites, dead skin and debris.
Professor Lameira believes that this unique session among our furry ancestors would have been carried out on the entire body and ended with mouth-to-mouth contact.
Very gradually, as our ancestors evolved and became less and less hairy, these grooming sessions would have become shorter, but they would always have ended with word of mouth.
Over time, the basic grooming session died out, but the final stage of mouth contact remained, becoming what we know as the kiss.
In his article he says: “The hygienic importance of personal grooming decreased throughout human evolution due to hair loss.”
“But, as might be expected, the shorter sessions would have retained a final “kissing” stage, ultimately remaining the only vestige of a behavior that was once ritual to mark and strengthen social and kinship ties in a setting. ancestral ape.”
Professor Lameira estimates that our ancestors developed the hair-sucking technique about 7 million years ago, when they moved from trees to land.
Today, kissing has a multitude of uses, including a meaning of romantic and sexual attraction, commonly depicted in movies. In the photo, Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' (1994)
“This made grooming important for hygienic purposes, given the high parasite load in the soil,” Professor Lameira told MailOnline.
Our ancestors “turned into a kissing ape” about 2 to 4 million years ago, when they lost all their fur.
More recently, the oldest recorded evidence of kissing appears in texts written in Mesopotamia, the ancient region located in the eastern Mediterranean, around 2500 BC.
All current forms of kissing evolved from the lice removal technique, maintains Professor Lameira: from a simple kiss on the cheek as a greeting to a religious blessing on the hand or head.
It also explains what is arguably one of the most important functions of kissing, commonly depicted in movies.
Kissing on the lips to indicate erotic or sexual desire between romantic partners was something the Romans called “savium.”
However, the exact reason why the kisses acquired a sexual connotation “remains more speculative,” the academic adds.
What's more, more research may be needed to explain the close connection between the desire to kiss and the need to have sex.
Today, kissing has a multitude of uses, including a meaning of romantic and sexual attraction, commonly depicted in movies. In the photo, Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) and Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) in 'Gone with the Wind' (1939)
“Kissing with sexual intent is nothing more than a special case of a much more basic behavior,” Professor Lameira told MailOnline.
“Only when kissing was used as a basic convention for showing affection could it become a mutual act of mouth to mouth.”
No other member of the animal kingdom is known to kiss sexually like humans do, sticking out their lips and making a slight sucking motion.
Professor Lameira concludes that the kiss has “become a crystallized symbol of trust and affiliation.”
“Few natural human signals carry the symbolism and social sanctions of kissing,” he says.
“Evidence supports that kissing is not a derived signal of affection in humans.
“Instead, it represents a vestigial and transferred form of primate preparation that retained its ancestral form, context and function.”
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