When Was the First Human Laugh?

Somewhere, at some point in human history, someone laughed for the very first time. 

This seems like it should be a momentous occasion worth commemorating, but unfortunately it is not preserved.

Which is understandable, really, since writing hadn't been invented yet, and also because the person doing the laughing probably had no idea they were making history.

I find myself wondering about this mysterious first laugh quite often, usually at inappropriate times like during meetings or while waiting in line at the grocery store. 

What exactly happened to trigger this proto human chuckle? 

And more importantly, did anyone else get the joke?

Scientists tell us that laughter likely evolved somewhere between 2 and 4 million years ago, which is a frustratingly vague timeframe for such an important milestone. 

You'd think we could narrow it down a bit more, but apparently the fossil record is notoriously unhelpful when it comes to preserving evidence of prehistoric comedy.

What we do know is that our early ancestors developed laughter before they developed language, which suggests that the first laugh probably wasn't in response to a clever pun or a well-timed one-liner. 

The challenge with pinpointing the first laugh is that we don't know what early humans found funny. 

Modern humans laugh at everything from physical comedy to ironic observations about airline food, but what would strike a proto-human as hilarious?

Perhaps it was something simple: someone slipping on a particularly slippery rock, or the sight of a fellow early human trying to figure out which end of a stick was the pointy one. 

Maybe it was the first time someone saw their own reflection in water and realized they were having a bad hair day.

Or perhaps it was more sophisticated than we give our ancestors credit for. 

Maybe the first laugh was someone's response to the cosmic absurdity of having evolved consciousness only to spend most of their time worrying about where their next meal was coming from.

Here's what I find most intriguing: when that first person laughed, what did everyone else do? 

Did they understand what was happening, or did they just stare in confusion at this strange new sound their companion was making?

I imagine there was probably a moment of genuine concern. "That guy is making weird noises again. Should we be worried? 

Should we hit him with a stick?"

But then maybe someone else started laughing too, and suddenly you had the world's first comedy audience. 

The realization that this new sound felt good, that it was somehow contagious, that it made the group feel more connected—this would have been a revolutionary moment in human development.

Where did this happen? Was it in Africa, where most of human evolution took place? 

Was it around a fire, during one of those long evenings when early humans had nothing to do but stare at flames and contemplate their existence? 

Or was it during the day, perhaps during a particularly unsuccessful hunting expedition where someone farted and scared the prey away.

I like to think it was somewhere pleasant, maybe near a waterhole on a warm day when food was plentiful and predators were scarce. 

A moment when our ancestors could afford to find something amusing rather than just focus on survival.

That first laugh changed everything, though the laugher certainly didn't know it at the time. 

It was the beginning of humor, of comedy, of the human ability to find lightness in darkness. 

It was the evolutionary moment that would eventually lead to everything from Shakespeare's comedies to modern stand-up to people sending funny videos to each other on their phones.

Without that first laugh, we might never have developed the concept of irony, or the ability to find humor in our own mistakes, or the social bonding that comes from sharing a joke. 

We might have remained a species that took everything deadly seriously, which, when you think about it, would have been pretty tragic.

The truth is, we'll never know when the first human laugh occurred, or what caused it, or who was there to witness it. 

It's one of those moments in history that's lost forever, which is perhaps fitting for something as ephemeral and unrecordable as laughter.

But I like to think that whoever laughed first had a really good reason. 

Not just a polite chuckle or a nervous giggle, but a genuine, belly-deep laugh that surprised even them. 

Something so funny that it transcended the normal concerns of early human life and created a moment of pure joy.

And maybe, just maybe, the people around them laughed too, and for a brief moment, our ancestors felt relief, and discovered that life didn't always have to be so serious after all.

A notion we are still struggling with today.