Image Credit : Dr Barbara Veselka
Posted on 08/01/2022 12:29:05 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The authors of the study, published in the journal Science Advances, say the Neolithic flourishing of facial herpes detected in the ancient DNA may have coincided with the advent of a new cultural practice imported from the east: romantic and sexual kissing...
Two further samples were local to Cambridge, UK. One a female from an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery a few miles south of the city, dating from 6-7th centuries AD. The other a young adult male from the late 14th century, buried in the grounds of medieval Cambridge’s charitable hospital (later to become St. John’s College), who had suffered appalling dental abscesses.
The final sample came from a young adult male excavated in Holland: a fervent clay pipe smoker, most likely massacred by a French attack on his village by the banks of the Rhine in 1672.
The researchers point out that the earliest known record of kissing is a Bronze Age manuscript from South Asia, and suggest the custom – far from universal in human cultures – may have travelled westward with migrations into Europe from Eurasia.
In fact, centuries later, the Roman Emperor Tiberius tried to ban kissing at official functions to prevent disease spread, a decree that may have been herpes-related. However, for most of human prehistory, HSV-1 transmission would have been “vertical”: the same strain passing from infected mother to newborn child.
Two-thirds of the global population under the age of 50 now carry HSV-1, according to the World Health Organisation. For most of us, the occasional lip sores that result are embarrassing and uncomfortable, but in combination with other ailments – sepsis or even COVID-19, for example – the virus can be fatal. In 2018, two women died of HSV-1 infection in the UK following Caesarean births.
(Excerpt) Read more at heritagedaily.com ...
“Kissing” is not unknown among non-human primates. They may not “slip the tongue” but they do “smooch.”
“Prehistoric roots”
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6-7 century AD and the more 14 century AD are not “Prehistoric”
History goes back a long time before.
Sorry to say but British guys who have bad teeth isn’t really much of a surprise.
Two-thirds of the global population under the age of 50 now carry HSV-1, according to the World Health Organisation. For most of us, the occasional lip sores that result are embarrassing and uncomfortable, but in combination with other ailments – sepsis or even COVID-19, for example – the virus can be fatal. In 2018, two women died of HSV-1 infection in the UK following Caesarean births.
My mother had cold sores. I never caught them from her. I also never caught them anywhere else.
23 and me said my herpes simplex 6 came from the syphilis valley... gonorrhea apply as soon as the lips clear up...
Given how monkeypox and AIDs spread, I bet the clay pipe isn’t the only pipe the vector smoked.
Cave sluts
“The authors of the study, published in the journal Science Advances, say the Neolithic flourishing of facial herpes detected in the ancient DNA may have coincided with the advent of a new cultural practice imported from the east: romantic and sexual kissing...”
I don’t believe the analysis.
Asian societies long held less favoratism to kissing than Mediterranean and European cultures, right up to the modern era.
I’ve never had a cold-sore or herpes or anything like that...
I’m so lonely :-/
lol
There was some very blunt Asian politician who said something like “if you haven’t had Covid by now, you are a loaner and loser with no friends. You need to get out more.”
Made me laugh
I remember that Rodney Dangerfield made a joke similar to what I posted... I miss Rodney :-)
Probably sex with monkeys started it.
ibthtp
My mother had cold sores. I never caught them from her. I also never caught them anywhere else.
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Ditto.
homo’s been spreading disease since time immortal. The only way to avoid them was to marry a virgin.
Many people who do have the virus never have symptoms. They can still pass it to uninfected humans who will show symptoms.
The ultimate”plausible deniability” disease.
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