

I would guess someone invented the handshake in prehistoric times and we just have no medium in which a record could exist aside from an undiscovered cave drawing or something like that. Humans seem to naturally touch hands outside of any social influence or cultural history. Babies reach out and people touch their hands. It seems like a pretty intuitive human action. We touch things with our hands, so other hands seems natural as a thing to touch. The shake just seems like a minor variation on that.




About 18 years ago when I was a dispatcher, I had someone call 911 to report their drug dealer stole their laptop because they couldn’t afford to pay for the drugs they wanted to purchase. I asked them a few times if they would like to file a police report that states that they intentionally purchased illegal drugs. They didn’t seem to understand the angle of the question and we asked them to stay where they were so a deputy could go out and take a statement.