# When did humans start wiping their butts? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587 "2013-04-02T01:59:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/21 "2013-04-02T19:07:34Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Wiping prevents skin rash and eventual skin breakdown. Early man must have used something. Grass, or scraps of animal hides seem like good candidates. I have always chuckled at the mental image of cave men scooting their butts across grass the way dogs will do on carpet. Probably not the way it was done… But I think the comparison to dogs is a good illustration that a species doesn’t need to wait for culture or taboos to have a reason to wipe their butt. I’d be shocked if any tool-using human wouldn’t have figured out something. In addition to the ideas of grass or hides, I think rocks have to be high on the list of candidates. Even today, people in Afghanistan use smooth river rocks in place of toilet paper. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/22 "2013-04-02T20:01:05Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Plus what Baffle is getting at with the configuration of humans bottoms. Very different than our other primate cousins, and while an attractive sexual display for a bipedal species it makes things a bit inconvenient in the defecation department. It probably all came together fairly early on though that we needed to wipe with something, but as John said there is (afaik) no way at all to definitively answer that question, since no one is going to decorate a cave with wall paintings or carvings of a human taking a crap and wiping up afterwards, and since anything they would have used was almost certainly organic it’s long gone. well I know there have been coprolites found preserved in caves. I presume if they survived, the wiping implement might have and that hasn’t been found. I recognize this requires some BIG ASSumptions; But the lack of leaves found with the piles of preserved poop would indicate to me that they did not wipe in those cases. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/23 "2013-04-02T20:17:57Z")
LMWTFY… [Anal hygiene - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_cleansing) ---
**Author:** ![Small\_Hen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ad7895/32.png) [@Small\_Hen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Small_Hen)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/24 "2013-04-02T20:39:25Z")
My cat wipes his ass on the carpet (much to my chagrin) when shit gets stuck in his fur. We’ve probably done the same since we were furry little apes. As for cleaning up every time? Bipedalism and the development of clothes seem like pretty good answers. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/25 "2013-04-02T20:48:51Z")
> [@JBDivmstr](#): > > I’ve seen that video before and it makes me wonder, is that behavior also practiced/been observed, in the wild? 😕 There are a number of animals that engage in coprophagia. There are videos of elephants doing the same, and [rabbits do it too.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit#Diet_and_eating_habits) ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/26 "2013-04-02T20:50:16Z")
> [@jasg](#): > > LMWTFY… [Anal hygiene - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_cleansing) Were you trying to be funny or something? Did you even read the OP and the Wiki link? It doesn’t give or even attempt an answer. FAIL ---
**Author:** ![SanDiegoTim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@SanDiegoTim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanDiegoTim)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/27 "2013-04-02T21:39:00Z")
Just for kicks try wiping with the hand you don’t normally use. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/28 "2013-04-02T21:52:21Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Were you trying to be funny or something? > Did you even read the OP and the Wiki link? It doesn’t give or even attempt an answer. > FAIL I was serious and figured the wiki comments about ancient Japan and the Romans met your criteria of before “triple-ply aloe-vera pre-cut toilet paper”… Not that either culture achieved that level of civilization at the same time, so I think the answer you seek will vary by culture. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/29 "2013-04-02T21:59:20Z")
It became a necessity when all that gluteus maximus muscle meant that the orfice was more recessed, less self-cleaning and more likely to smear. Once we started to walk upright. After all, supposedly that upright stance coincided with our ancestors learning to hunt - being a walking scent-stick probably does not make hunting easy. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/30 "2013-04-02T22:04:38Z")
> [@XT](#): > > … and since anything they would have used was almost certainly organic it’s long gone. Alright! Who took my poop rock?! ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/31 "2013-04-02T23:12:52Z")
Riddle: Q: What’s the difference between toilet paper and a shower curtain? A: I don’t know. Q: Ok, then you can’t come over to my house. ---
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/32 "2013-04-02T23:23:49Z")
I’ve worked with a lot of very down to earth country boys from Mexico over the years and they all used a smooth rock or a hand (not a friend’s hand, I’d guess). My old friend Bufalo went off to take a country crap one day and he came back with a dead cottontail. He told me he was crouching in the brush, saw the rabbit, and winged it with the rock he was going to wipe with. Bet that’s been going on since the monkeys saw the monolith. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/33 "2013-04-02T23:47:43Z")
one of the reasons for the domestication of dogs was anal hygiene. when dogs started getting fed better then people had to resort to plant leaves and corn cobs. these unsatisfactory methods eventually lead to the invention of the printing press. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/34 "2013-04-02T23:58:48Z")
> [@jasg](#): > > I was serious and figured the wiki comments about ancient Japan and the Romans met your criteria of before “triple-ply aloe-vera pre-cut toilet paper”… > > Not that either culture achieved that level of civilization at the same time, so I think the answer you seek will vary by culture. LMWTFY means “you stupid lazy moron, can’t you even check fuckin’ wiki?” ---
**Author:** ![smokey78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@smokey78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smokey78)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/35 "2013-04-03T00:40:45Z")
Eastern world: using their left hands and water. How did Native americans do it? Did they originate the corn cob? Also, does one eat the corn cob and pile them up for wiping? What a waste if using a fresh corn cob other than eating it. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/36 "2013-04-03T01:00:51Z")
A Brit friend of mine told me of a legend (most likely urban), that some would use the neck of a swan to wipe their ass. He told us this after he told us he believes its illegal to eat swan, except for the Queen. Of course I wondered, in which order she would have her way with the swan. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/37 "2013-04-03T01:10:06Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > LMWTFY means “you stupid lazy moron, can’t you even check fuckin’ wiki?” Not a match for my acronym, but sorry you took it that way. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/38 "2013-04-03T02:37:12Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > I suspect it didn’t really start before bathing and the emergence of scatological taboos. Other than the smell and social embarrassment, there aren’t a whole lot of practical reasons to wipe. Yes, there is. Feces – even one’s own, have been shown to be an irritant and create sores. There’s a paper about this, vited in the amazing book **End Product – The First Taboo** by Dan Sabbath. If true, this suggests that humans who wiped were less likely to get sick and more likely to survive. A definitive answer about when this developed probably isn’t going to appear. Wiping materials (see the Rabelais quote, but humans have, based on other sources, used leaves, shells, rocks, paper, and (in ancient Greece and Rome) sponges for this purpose). Most of those are notoriously short-lived, and even with long-lived items like rocks and shells, I doubt if you’re going to find human coprolite remains. For the record, bipedalism seems to date back to the Australopithecines cira 4 million years ago. I suspect that’s when it all started. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/39 "2013-04-03T03:54:31Z")
Factors to consider: Lack of fur and wearing clothing/less exposure to air. (Occured contemporaneously to a large degree.) Fur keeps the stool off the sensitive skin and lack of clothing, hence exposure to air, let it dry and just rub, fall off along the way. No fur meant sticking to skin and clothing required to stay warm without fur limited air drying and just falling off with contact with ground from sitting, etc. Instead it would get on the clothing … a very valuable item and not something you wanted to have to wash every day. Changes in diet later on, from Paleolithic to Neolithic, the rise of agriculture, probably changed the nature of the poops. More crowded and static living conditions. Living in a village required keeping waste separate from food and other common area else diseases would spread. Walking around with poop on your butt spreading on everywhere else you sit, including where you eat will quickly spread infectious diseases. A strong selection pressure would favor any tribe that developed a means of keeping poop from being spread about other areas like that. Thus I would suggest that minimally some wiping would have originated no later than with the onset of fixed homestead settlement locations (early agricultural times) and probably even along with the loss of fur and wearing of early clothing. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2013, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587/40 "2013-04-03T04:02:45Z")
So you clean-with-rock observers, there’s a Wiki entry that must be corrected. So what the hell _does_ that set of letters mean? (I can’t think of the word. It’s not an acronym, it’s not an abbreviation, its a…Damn, I was really obnoxious a few years ago in a post about using the correct word.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-humans-start-wiping-their-butts/654587.md?page=3)