Fossilized kisses?

 We are all familiar now with the concept of dominant virus variants. It seems that the contemporary variants of the herpes simplex virus, the cause of cold sores, that are dominant in Europe share a common ancestor. Scientists in the Cambridge Infectious Diseases research centre studied ancient DNA from 3,000 archaeological sites and found evidence of herpes simplex in four specimens. The oldest was an iron age man buried in the Ural mountains. Two other cases were found in a woman in her 30s or 40s and a man in his late teens or early 20s found at sites in Cambridge. The fourth was a man buried on the banks of the Rhine, whose damaged teeth suggest that he was fond of smoking a clay pipe.

 According to the report I read in yesterday's Guardian, the scientists were able to trace the origins of the virus to 4,500 years ago in the Bronze Age. This coincides with mass migrations from the steppe grasslands of Eurasia to Europe. The Cambridge scientists, not content with this plausible explanation, suggest that a new human behaviour may help to account for the spread of the virus: kissing. Apparently, the earlies known reference to kissing is a Bronze Age manuscript from South Asia. 

 I am not quite sure that the absence of earlier evidence for kissing proves that it originated at that time, but it's an interesting idea. Did some other behaviour precede kissing, rubbing noses perhaps, some form of caressing, perhaps something a little rougher such as a hearty slap on the face? Once, reading a dictionary of a southern African language published by Macmillan, I came across a verb defined as "removing an object from the eye with one's tongue" (I assume the tongue and eye belonged to distinct individuals). Perhaps some such loving act spread the virus rather than kissing.

Whatever, the truth, Dr. Charlotte Houldcroft, one of the Cambridge researchers, told the paper "Kissing is one of those behaviours that doesn't fossilise well." That's an archaeological axiom with which I heartily agree.

Happy kissing, or some alternative behaviour.