Fire paved the way for humans to evolve into today’s species. Scientists suspect that without controlling the fire, humans would probably not have developed a large brain and the associated benefits. But when did humans first discover how to use fire?
“It’s a tricky question,” said Ian Tattersall, a paleoanthropologist and honorary curator of anthropogenic origin at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. “Maybe fire evidence isn’t well preserved, and what we see is just a fraction of what was previously a much richer record, but it’s also speculation. Hmm.”
What experts know, according to a 2016 review article in the journal, was that fires began to frequently occur in archaeological records in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia about 400,000 years ago. Royal Society B Philosophical Deal.. Experts believe these fires are widespread, but there is still relatively little evidence.
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According to Tattersal, there are early humans who used fire 400,000 years ago in at least two isolated locations. For example, a 2012 study in the journal found that archaeologists found hearths, flints, and burnt tree debris in a location in Israel some 800,000 years ago. Science.. According to a 2012 study in the journal, at another site called Wonderwork Cave in South Africa, scientists found evidence that humans used fire about a million years ago. Minutes of the National Academy of Sciences.. In the cave, they found what looked like burned bones and plant debris and hearths.
“It’s really deep inside the cave,” said Sarah Fulbic, a paleoanthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at George Washington University in Washington, DC. In other words, even if the data is spatially and temporally separated, it is unlikely that the data is wrong.
Wonderwerk is the earliest site where most experts agree that humans used fire, but in theory they should have used it much earlier. About 2 million years ago, the intestines of human ancestors Standing man It started to shrink, suggesting that things like cooking made digestion very easy. Meanwhile, the brain was growing, which requires a lot of energy. “Where else do you get energy without cooking food without using fire?” Tattersall referred to live science about cooking meat and vegetables.
To support that claim, Hulbic is looking for signs of ancient controlled fires at the ruins of Quobifora, a region in northern Kenya that is rich in paleoanthropological sites some 1.6 million years ago. So far, she has found burned bones swarming with other artifacts. The burned deposits were clustered separately, suggesting that there was one area for maintaining the fire and another area where ancient humans spent most of their time.
“At this point, I’m pretty sure, “there was a fire that the people at this particular site were using,” he said. “The next step in the investigation is,” Is there evidence of fire at any of the other sites in the area?” ”
However, not all experts agree with Fulbic. The fire at the site she discovered may not have been caused by humans. Evidence could have come from bushes Lit a natural forest fire..
Whenever fire use occurred, the ability of humans to catch and control wildfires, or to create their own fire, had a major impact on the evolution of species. It probably prolonged life, made humans more social by giving people a place to gather, and with the invention of clothing, helped them move to colder climates, Tattersall said. Fulvic added that using fire also increased human cognition. “The advantage of using it is that it enhances the cognitive benefits you already have and then it produces it, because fire is a complex thing,” she said. “If used incorrectly, it can be extremely injured.”
Originally published on Live Science.