Having come across this interesting pdf article The First Joke - Exploring The Evolutionary Origins Of Humour, I was wondering if any of you inventive ladies and gents might be able to think up some examples of what passed for humour in pre-historic times. ( Any Neanderthals are welcome too!). I’ve had a think about it and my mind’s coming up blank. Give me some inspiration, please.
p.s. Sorry if this has been asked before, but the search facility on here drives me potty.
Probably a fart joke.
The first joke? Putting a naked man and woman in a lovely garden and not letting 'em get it on. (okay, so you knew some variation of that was coming.)
I’d guess that what we’d consider “seventh-grade humor” or “potty humor” existed in prehistoric times. I’m sure Thak and Ug laughed their asses off when Mog made fart noises with his armpit.
ETA: On preview, I see garygnu had the same idea. Farts are funny.
Not prehistoric, which by definition is impossible.
The oldest joke I know was cited in a linguistics text. The ancient Greeks told “dumb peasant” jokes, as we tell jokes about various groups.
Real bunch of wags, those Greeks.
Regards,
Shodan
Why did the single-celled organism cross the goo.
It was when that jackdaw yelled out “No fear!”
Seriously, the first joke was probably more of a practical joke than a verbal one. Like offering a banana which turned out to be an empty peel. Something along those lines.
I’m firmly convinced that “pull my finger” has been around for at least 50,000 years. 
I was thinking a nut shot.
Ah, yes. Laughing at the pain of others. A good candidate.
Guy sleeping in low part of cave. Wakes up, sits up, bangs head. Onlookers amused.
I somehow recall another thread mentioning the oldest documented jokes was written in Cuneiform by the Sumerians. Here’s an article about it.
If you want to go the Adam & Eve route, it’d have been when they were about to be kicked out of the garden and were clothing themselves.
Eve handed Adam a smaller leaf.
Ba dum bum. Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all week.
The jackdaw.
“I call it ‘fire.’ Go on, touch it; it’s completely safe.”
Jumping ahead a bit in the whole history of jokes timeline…
Does anyone know who invented the classic “flaming-bag-of-dog-crap-left-on-the-porch” gag?
Those Sumerians were obviously putting away a lot of that delicious new invention, beer.
God giving Adam a penis. Adam says to Eve when she laughs: “If you think that’s funny, pull my finger.”
I was supposed to use dog crap?
My cats appear to derive pleasure from observing each others’ pratfalls, if that helps.
Pain, or just screwups. As I recall, there are studies indicating that many apes find such crude “slapstick” types of humor amusing. I can’t find a link though; googling about apes and humor gets me a lot of links about funny apes.