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We are expected to spend $45 billion on perfumes by 2018, but why are humans so obsessed with smelling fragrant?

A new book suggests that our fascination with scent started with our ancient ancestors and stretches back millions of years.

It could even be the reason why we are able to live in dense societies while living a mainly monogamous lifestyle.

A new book suggests that our love affair with scent started with our ancestors and stretches back millions of years.  A model of prehistoric hunter gatherers is pictured

The book, 'Adam's Nose and the Making of Mankind', tells the story of how the sense of smell evolved from the earliest beginnings of life, and enabled humans to become the only animal on Earth to have developed a 'smell culture.'

Writer Professor Michael Stoddart claims that our sense of smell evolved to make human pheromones undetectable, when compared to other species

The academic, based at the University of Tasmania, Australia, claims we evolved from species living in mostly monogamous small families and that over time our ancestors' pheromone detectors were disabled.

'Monogamy, which underpins the security of the one-female family structure, would not have withstood the sexual pressures of communal living,' he said.

The book, entitled 'Adam's Nose and the Making of Mankind,' (pictured) tells the story of how the sense of smell evolved from the earliest beginnings of life

Our distant Miocene ancestors, living over 20 million years ago, advertised their heat via smell, to ensure mating occurred.

He explained: 'As the ancestral human line evolved, the genetic advantage of visual and olfactory advertisement of heat gradually became superseded by the benefit of ensuring that only one male would remain sexually involved with one female.'

We are the only one of 5,400 mammal species to live communally while maintaining a mostly monogamous lifestyle.

This societal structure led to fairly stable communities and cut down on in-fighting.

Professor Stoddart said: 'Evolution has removed from humankind many instinctive reactions to smells to which other animals remain slaves, inviting our forebears to replace those smells with a rich and pervasive smell culture.

'Removal of instinctive reactions make it possible for us to live in close proximity to many of our fellows, in relative, if not total, harmony'.

Sociability also allowed our ancestors to hunt collaboratively and reap the nutritional benefits of a meat-rich diet, setting human evolution on the path that leads to us to today.

'Monogamy and gregariousness could co-exist only when the link between sex and smell was broken; only when the link was broken could our puny ancestors find ways to hunt cooperatively to kill the large mammals on the grassy plains of Africa,' Dr Stoddart writes.

'Without the link being broken, we would not be here today. 

Sex and smell have been evolutionary travelling companions throughout evolutionary history.

The control of sex and the perception of smell both lie in the most ancient parts of the brain. 

Our sense of smell could even be the reason why we are able to live in dense societies (a stock image is shown) while living a mainly monogamous lifestyle, which encourages stable groups

Social gregariousness allowed our ancestors to hunt collaboratively and reap the nutritional benefits of a meaty diet, setting human evolution on the path that leads to us today. Ancient rock art by the San people of South Africa show ancient hunters

Over time, humans' sense of smell evolved to only be based on the nose's olfactory membrane, and not another structure called the 'vomeronasal organ' or VMO. Other mammals use both.

This change means that the human nose is connected to the rational as well as the emotional brain so we are not slaves to smells. 

But despite the mutation that makes pheromones all but undetectable, humans retained the ancient neural pathways in the brain formerly associated with sexual smells, which may explain our fascination with smells and perfume today.

'As societies grew and people came to live at ever-higher densities, constant reminders of our animal origins didn't sit well with emerging social and religious expectations, so people did what they could to remove their natural smells,' Professor Stoddart said.

'A 21st century Adam and Eve have made an art form out of removing their natural body smells, scrubbing, shaving and deodorising and perfuming all parts.'

The book notes that while we don't want to smell of humans, we wear perfume to smell of other animals, by using musky scents, for example.

'21st century Adam and Eve have made an art form out of removing their natural body smells, scrubbing, shaving and deodorising and perfuming all parts,' Professor Stoddart said. A stock image is shown

'We've a primeval urge to smell of something, but not to smell of the humans we are,' it says.

As our ancestors gradually evolved over a few million years, the first semblances of smell culture began to emerge, although experts are unsure when we first started to rub pleasant-smelling scents on our bodies.

'Over the past quarter of a million years, our unique species of ape came to regard the natural body smell as having a harmful effect on emerging social structures though its ability to telegraph our animal origins.

'As running water and soap became more common, our forefathers went to increasing lengths to remove their natural body scent, but sensing a certain social nakedness associated with having no smell, replaced it with something appealing to the nostrils. 

'That something didn't speak of human bodies.'

The first deliberately created perfumes comprised incense, myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, sugar cane and flowers. 

The book concludes that modern society owes much to our sense of smell, which some might write off as irrelevant.

'Nothing is further from the truth', said Professor Stoddart.

'Modern humans may not use their sense of smell for information about the mundane things that fill their daily lives, as do dogs and mice, but just a few molecules of scent swept along on an incoming tide of air can trigger neural pathways in the brain that once caused our ancestors to feed, fight, flee, or copulate. They take us to new levels of human fulfillment.'

A QUICK HISTORY OF PERFUME - AND ITS LINK TO SEX

It's not known when humans first applied scent to their bodies purely for the smell.

It's possible that the scent of an aromatic herb rubbed onto a wound for its healing qualities might have been the initial trigger and monkeys have been observed in the wild, running themselves with scented plants.

Smell culture in humans revolves around perfumes and incense.

The first recorded uses of incense come from ancient China and India where it was used in worship 7,000 years ago and the first human-made perfumes date to 4,000 years ago, in Cyprus.

Archaeologists uncovered evidence of a Bronze Age perfume workshop in Pygos, in 2005 complete with bottles and mixing tools.

The earliest perfumes comprised incense, myrrh (pictured left), frankincense, cinnamon, sugar cane (right) and flowers but it is not known when humans first applied scent to their bodies purely for the smell

The earliest perfumes comprised incense, myrrh, frankincense, cinnamon, sugar cane and flowers.

In the times of the Ancient Greek Philosopher Plato, perfume was frowned upon and was worn by prostitutes and deviants, but the Romans were heavy users of scent, which masked bodily smells.

Likewise, the Ancient Egyptians wore cones of scented animal fat on their heads to perfume the space around their faces in the heat of the desert.

Plato wrote that the eyes and ears are 'capable of providing pleasures that elevate the soul,' while the nose is the 'source of purely carnal indulgence'.

The technique of extracting oils of plants with alcohol wasn't developed until the 14th century in Europe, with the appearance of Hungary water – a mixture of rosemary and thyme distilled in brandy – and Oil of Negroli, an orange and bergamot distillate.

In the Age of Enlightenment, smell was regarded as an animal sense driving animal behaviours such as fighting and copulating.

During the reign of Louis XVI, women courtiers used perfume to attract the opposite sex, despite the lower classes being discouraged to use musk to disguise their human smells, because the aristocrats thought it made them smell of animals.

We are expected to spend $45 billion (£30 billion) on perfumes in 2018 and the advertising that accompanies scents is still linked to sex. 

There are even perfumes named Putain des Palaces, which means Eau de Hotel S**t and Magnificent Secretions, which smells of sweat, saliva, blood, metal and semen, according to the book.

How to smell great using only natural methods (related)