New Delhi: The first kiss on Earth may have taken place around 21 million years ago, a new study has claimed. It presents evidence that kissing is not just cultural but evolutionary.

The study , ‘ A comparative approach to the evolution of kissing’, published Wednesday in the journal Evolution and Human Behavi o r , found that kissing occurs in most great apes and was likely practised by Neanderthals, an extinct group of archaic humans.

Led by the University of Oxford, the researchers set out to understand the “evolutionary puzzle” of kissing. It doesn’t help survival or boost reproduction, and is in fact a good way to pass on germs, yet it’s still entrenched in human behaviour across many societies. Show Full Article

“In the new study, the researchers carried out the first a

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