We know for a fact that humans and Neanderthals—or more accurately Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, since BOTH are “human”—got their freak on. We have some Neanderthal DNA inside of us. Only one way it coulda got in there, folks. This caveman DNA has even been blamed for certain modern maladies from which some of us suffer, like Depression. So yes, way back in the day, the Neanderthals and the Cro-Magnons had sex. But did they KISS? It’s a little gross to think about, since toothpaste and basic dental hygiene hadn’t been invented yet. A new study on some 50,000-year-old dental plaque scraped off some Neanderthal teeth discovered in Belgium and Spain reveal not only what the owners of the teeth were eating (wooly rhino, tree bark, mushrooms, and sheep, in case you were wondering) but traces of a microbe that would have caused gum disease.
Did the microbes originate with the Homo sapiens? The article doesn’t make that clear. It seems a logical inference, if we are to accept that the existence of the microbe indicates that the two disparate species of humans were kissing. Either that, or they were sharing food and drinking after each other, which may comprise a more likely scenario. One way or the other, though, it proves that our ancestors from both sides of the fence were associating closely.
