It took me a really long time to understand how to even do the Liberian finger snap. My favorite is the penis handshake, which is kind of absolutely magnificent and wonderful. It's just because we see ourselves as being special, as being different from animals that for us, that's quite shocking. I think touch is fundamentally really important in greetings.
Friends do it, strangers do it and so do chimpanzees - and it's not just deeply embedded in our history and culture, it may even be written in our DNA. The humble handshake, it turns out, has a rich and surprising history. In this week's episode palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi speaks to science broadcaster Helen Czerski about a funny and fascinating voyage of discovery - from the handshake's origins (at least seven million years ago) all the way to its sudden disappearance in March 2020.
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