March 25, 2008 -- In the ancient Greek poem "The Odyssey," the story's hero, Odysseus, tells the Cyclops that his name is "Nobody." When Odysseus instructs his men to drive a fiery iron spit into the monster's single eye, the Cyclops yells out in vain, "Friends, Nobody is killing me now," so no one comes to help.
This action-adventure humor, dating to around 800 B.C., is one of the first recorded jokes, according to the classics scholar Owen Ewald, who recently presented his findings on "Humor in the Ancient World" at Seattle Pacific University.
The world's first one-liners, however, were likely delivered tens of thousands of years before Homer, author of "The Odyssey," was born.
The Earliest Evidence for Humor
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, anthropologists Louis Schulze and Charles Chewings became the first outsiders to record contact with Australian aboriginals, who had been genetically and culturally isolated from the rest of the world for at least 35,000 years. They witnessed evidence of a comedic tradition that could date as far back, according to Joseph Polimeni, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba.
Polimeni recently authored a paper on the evolutionary origins of humor, published in the journal Evolutionary Psychology.
Schulze and Chewings got caught in a terrifying thunderstorm they thought would scare the Australians. Instead, as they later wrote: "When the thunder rends the air in deafening claps...the natives show no fear. On the contrary, they will converse freely, make light of it, and even burst out laughing at an unusually loud or peculiar clap of thunder."
The ability to be amused by life's inevitable surprises goes back at least 35,000 years, Polimeni said, citing the isolated Australians' genetic capacity for humor.
"Since archaeologists believe that modern Homo sapiens date to 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, it's actually not a very provocative statement," he added. "In fact, humor is probably at least as old as that."
The Co-Evolution of Humor and Spirituality
The 35,000-year-ago mark is significant because many milestones in human evolution began to surface at that point. Polimeni thinks people were beginning to develop the brainpower for more abstract thinking. One of the earliest symbolic pieces of art, a figurine with the head of a lion and the legs of a person, dates to this period.
Evidence for the earliest spirituality also dates to the same era, through archaeological depictions resembling contemporary shamanistic art, Polimeni said. Zombies -- still a comedic B-movie favorite --represent the sort of early beliefs that mixed spirituality with the contradictions that often form the basis of humor.
"A zombie, a spiritual concept in many hunting and gathering societies, is a person who is dead," explained Polimeni. "Being both dead and an active person is a contradiction...a violation, a concept reflecting opposite positions," qualities present in many a joke.
Polimeni theorizes that humor and spirituality emerged together, perhaps as ways for humans to relieve stress, communicate and make social connections in lieu of grooming, roughhousing and other, more direct means used by our primate ancestors.
"Given that the basis of humor may conceivably be rooted in the same cognitive machinery that allows animals to play and tease, it is certainly possible that the cognitive processes that allow spirituality may have piggy-backed on this humor cognitive substructure," he said.
Lost in Translation
The link between spirituality and humor may extend to the Bible, but much of the book's sarcasm, irony and wordplay was lost when it was translated into Latin and other languages, according to Brooklyn College's Hershey Friedman, who published related findings in the journal Humor.
"Translating Hebrew into English results in the loss of the imagery and wordplays of the Hebrew," he told Discovery News.
One of Friedman's favorite passages is the "Book of Jonah," which, in the Jewish faith, is read each year on Yom Kippur. Jonah becomes such a successful prophet that people repent, fast and dress according to his guidance. "Even the animals fast," Friedman said.
He explained that Jonah was meant to be a parody for readers.
"In effect, God is saying, 'I sent the worst prophet I could find (Jonah) to the Assyrians, and he did not have to say very much, and they all repented. I sent numerous articulate prophets to the Israelites and they did not wish to change their idolatrous ways."
"There is humor here, but the humor is used to deliver a very potent message," he added. "The humor in the Bible has a purpose. It is used to mock the idolater and the wicked."
The First Joke Books
Monks continued the tradition of using humor as a teaching tool in the Ioca Monachorum, a text that dates to 700 A.D.
Riddles abound: Who was not born but died? (Adam). What man can kill another man without being punished? (A doctor).
The earliest known collection of jokes in a book, however, is Philogelos, or "Laughter-Lover," dating to 350 A.D. in the Greco-Roman period.
Ewald says many of the anecdotes concern the comedic exploits of an idiotic "egghead" character. More than 100 jokes target snooty intellectuals, irritating professors, people with bad breath and even slaveholders. One reads, "An intellectual was on a sea voyage when a big storm blew up, causing his slaves to weep in terror. 'Don't cry,' he consoled them, 'I have freed you all in my will.'"
The Original Jon Stewart?
Certain forms of humor have come and gone over the centuries. Nevertheless, Ewald says, "What has remained the same are the methods of deriving humor -- humor from situations and humor from words still remain the two main techniques."
Incongruous situations involving animals, as well as political humor, seem to be as popular today as they were 2,500 years ago.
At that time, the Greek playwright Aristophanes was the Western world's Jon Stewart, according to Ewald. In one satire of the jury system in Athens, two dogs fight over a single piece of cheese. A canine jury and judge watch over the proceedings.
"Animals doing human things is always funny," Ewald said.
"Aristophanes is like Jon Stewart because he makes fun of politicians," he added. "For example, he calls the politician Cleon 'Jagged Teeth' to make fun of his physical appearance."
Humor's Global Reach
Perhaps the most striking feature of comedy through history is what a global phenomenon it is.
Tribal societies in Africa and the Americas designated clowns who spoofed all sorts of things and helped to resolve disputes. A "laughing Buddha" emerged in Buddhist, Taoist and Shinto cultures to welcome worshippers with his laughing face, protruding belly and sack full of goodies. Greenland's Innuits developed comedic insult contests to avoid physically harming each other under the worst imaginable conditions.
As Polimeni observed, "To my knowledge, no anthropologist has ever suggested he or she had visited a humorless society."
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Jennifer Viegas' blog: Born Animal