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This must be the right place to ask this question..Anthropologically thinking. Why is the human being the only animal on earth designed to have to wipe their buts after taking a crap. Poor designing I think and when did this activity begin and what kind of mess were we in before we started? Filthy I should think.

DonaldHRoberts 7 Mar 1
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1

If you squat on the ground to shit very little is left behind especially if you eat a more meat based diet with less plant material. Yes, I have thought about this before and as I often work outside miles from the nearest privy I have made direct observations. P.S. I always stuff a pocket with suitable material and carry hand sanitizer because shit happens.

1

In Colonial, and Early America, corncobs were used for that purpose. The Chinese are believed to have invented toilet paper in the 6th century A.D.. Modern, rolled toilet paper was patented in 1883.

davknight Level 8 Mar 4, 2019
0

The ancient Romans used sponges on sticks, which they then cleaned by dipping them in salt water. Unfortunately they often used the same salt water more than once!

Fernapple Level 9 Mar 4, 2019
1

Well after I stopped laughing I found it a most curious question
I prefer the soft and durable tissue and care not to have been alive any time before Cottonelle tissue and Tampax feminine hygiene products. This could go in a whole crazy ass direction. Boy now I am thinking of a few other products I'm glad we discovered

0

Certainly a really interesting question and some really interesting answers too. No problem with posting it, good post.

Fernapple Level 9 Mar 3, 2019
0

We did like the bears, n wiped our butts on trees!

davknight Level 8 Mar 2, 2019
1

Little fur to protect anus

bobwjr Level 10 Mar 1, 2019
0

We don't have a tail to do it for us .

Cast1es Level 9 Mar 1, 2019
4

Beer and nachos. Wild goats don't eat those.

4

Well considering that for humans to have been 'designed' in the first place implies that there must have been a Great and Intelligent Designer involved then I perceive that you are possibly thinking that there may have been a 'God-like' hand in the matter somewhere.
However, since humans arose from much earlier ancestral hominid species, early ape-like species in particular, who were actually quadrupedal ( walking on all fours) the musculature of the buttocks, the Glutei, were relatively small and not protrusive ergo, passing faeces meant simply that the waste would be expelled mostly without contacting the surrounding skin or hair/fur.
Once the earlier Homids started to stand erect and become bipedal the Glutei then become more and more involved with the act of bipedal locomotion and thus grew larger, expanding to what we have today, i.e butt/arse cheeks, that need to be spread apart to facilitate defecation.
With early hominids body odours, etc, would have been the 'norm' and not overly noticeable since everyone would have smelled the same, but as we, Homo Sapiens become more communal and self-aware we would have begun to notice these things, found them somewhat offensive and, voila, in comes the necessity for removing any waste matter trapped in the residual hair around the anus.
Therefore, hygiene would have arrived and arse wiping after defecation rather than wandering with shit dags dangling from ones arse attracting flies, etc, and using available chunks of greenery, leaves, etc, would have the primary solution UNTIL some very bright spark came along and discovered that using softer materials such as sponges, bits of old cloth/skins,etc was better than greenery until actual paper was invented.
Evolution does NOT seem to plan or design, it merely takes advantage of an adaption/mutation that gives a significant advantage to one individual/s over the rest and that becomes the next norm and the beat goes on and on until the next advantageous adaption/mutation comes along.
I have also often wondered myself, HOW did the earliest female humans cope with the regular 'flows' of menstrual fluids and the waste blood, etc, from after giving birth before such things as Sanitary Napkins, etc, were invented.

Triphid Level 9 Mar 1, 2019

I can answer your last question--females living during the earliest times may have menstruated only a dozen or so times in their lives, as they would quickly become pregnant upon becoming fertile, not menstruate while pregnant & for some time afterwards due to breastfeeding. And again, with no birth control new pregnancies would soon begin. Short life expectancy would also factor into few periods.

As to sanitary supplies--some Native American women used moss, & in some societies around the world, menstrual huts were used and the women could sit on clean sand or leaves & rest from their daily toils.

Currently in small remote villages in Africa there are women who just walk around dripping, which is very likely what the earliest female humans did. It's only a biological process after all, & I have found that Africans are very matter of fact about menstruation in general. I sew & donate washable sanitary pads to girls in Malawi & the directors of the schools & community groups are mostly men. They don't seem to feel the least embarrassed to explain what the girls need & why....

In Malawi up to 30% of females can't afford feminine hygiene items--you can read about that on my Facebook page Help Girls in Africa. Days for Girls has a very informative website too.

@Carin Yeah pretty much we were told when I studied nursing and biology but what about in the times well before that, i.e. when early humans were nomadic hunter-gathers, etc,, it's still a bit of a puzzle that, to my mind, may never be solved in full.

8

As we evolved our brains, we connected sanitation with longevity.

We see that among the most successfully adaptive mammals, the raccoon is meticulous with its washing habits.

But they're not alone about hygiene. Many mammals literally wipe their butts against bushes, shrubs and trees. Some scientists connect "territorial marking" to the practice; but those who didn't "do it" often got sick and died out of the gene pool...not so much because their territory was invaded, but because they developed infections.

We took that many steps further by developing indoor plumbing. Sanitized water supplies, bidets, toilets, soaps, and toilet papers.

You must know that it was only a couple hundred years ago that the germ theory of disease became well established.

Washing and purifying the air and the instruments used for surgery and personal hygiene had #religulous foundations from thousands of years ago because the science behind sanitation wasn't clear...but the wisdom was.

The ancient Egyptians were meticulous surgeons. Over 3000 years ago, they mastered the art of "trepanning"....opening the skull - very cleanly and with much purity - to let "demons" escape (and to remove tumors, as well).

[en.wikipedia.org]

Cooking food goes along those lines; too many raw foods were connected with too many illnesses...cooking was a way of "killing germs" thousands of years before anyone knew what germs were.

So ti was with personal hygiene. It just made us live longer, get sick less often.

[en.wikipedia.org]

3

Over tens of millennia, we evolved as predominately vegetarian animals. We ate our plants raw too. This diet is not nearlly as messy and odoriferous as the results of a meat and sugar diet. Try it!

Arouet Level 7 Mar 1, 2019

& they probably didn't have big fat butt cheeks either!

@Carin Running away from sabre-tooth cats can be very slimming and should be part of every weight-loss programme.

2

Life has been shitting since day 1..

Charlene Level 9 Mar 1, 2019
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