Picture this scenario if you will: I am walking towards you and when I see you my eyes crinkle a little at the sides, the corners of my mouth turn upward and I expose my teeth to you. How do you interpret this? Do you cross the road to avoid me because I am clearly contemplating eating you? Of course you don't, because you have recognised my facial contortions as a "smile", and smiles are good. At least, we have come to accept that a smile connotes amiable feelings, but how did we come to be smilers and are we the only species to do it? An examination of the human smile reveals just how much we are creatures not only of our evolution but also our society, and it might encourage you to do a little more smiling yourself.
Smile origins
We can't know exactly when the smile originated, but we can make a guess, and our best guess is that smiling began about
