The
control of fireFire is the rapid oxidation of a combustible material releasing heat, light, and various reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water. If hot enough, the gases may become ionized to produce plasma. Depending on the substances alight, and any impurities outside, the color of the flame and the...
by early humansHomo is the genus that includes modern humans and their close relatives. The genus is estimated to be about 2.5 million years old, evolving from Australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis...
was a turning point in
humanHuman evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominids, great apes and placental mammals...
cultural evolutionSociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have developed over time...
that allowed for humans to proliferate due to the incorporation of
cookedCooking is the process of preparing food by applying heat, selecting, measuring and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure for producing safe and edible food. The process encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor, appearance, texture,...
proteins and carbohydrates, expansion of human activity into the night hours, and protection from predators.
The earliest evidence of human usage of fire comes from various
archaeologicalArchaeology or archeology is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material culture and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, and landscapes...
sites in
East AfricaEast Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
, such as Chesowanja near
Lake BaringoLake Baringo is, after Lake Turkana, the most northern of the Great Rift Valley lakes of Kenya, with a surface area of about 130 km² and an elevation of about 970 m. The lake is fed by several rivers, El Molo, Perkerra and Ol Arabel, and has no obvious outlet; the waters are assumed to seep through...
,
Koobi ForaKoobi Fora refers primarily to a region around Koobi Fora Ridge, located on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana in the territory of the nomadic Gabbra people. According to the National Museums of Kenya, the name comes from the Gabbra language:...
, and
OlorgesailieOlorgesailie is a geological formation in East Africa containing a group of Lower Paleolithic archaeological sites. It is on the floor of the Eastern Rift Valley in southern Kenya, southwest of Nairobi along the road to Lake Magadi. Olorgesailie is noted for the large number of Acheulean hand...
in
KenyaThe Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean, at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Ethiopia , Somalia , Tanzania , Uganda plus Lake Victoria , and Sudan . The capital city is Nairobi. Kenya spans an area about 85% the size of France or Texas...
. The evidence at Chesowanja consists of red clay
sherdIn archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well....
s dated to be 1.42 million years (
MaAnnum is a form of the Latin noun annus meaning year, from which are derived words such as annual and annuity. Annum is the accusative singular of the 2nd declension masculine noun annus , anni...
)
Before PresentBefore Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use 1 January 1950 as the arbitrary origin of the age scale...
(BP).
The
control of fireFire is the rapid oxidation of a combustible material releasing heat, light, and various reaction products such as carbon dioxide and water. If hot enough, the gases may become ionized to produce plasma. Depending on the substances alight, and any impurities outside, the color of the flame and the...
by early humansHomo is the genus that includes modern humans and their close relatives. The genus is estimated to be about 2.5 million years old, evolving from Australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis...
was a turning point in
humanHuman evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominids, great apes and placental mammals...
cultural evolutionSociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have developed over time...
that allowed for humans to proliferate due to the incorporation of
cookedCooking is the process of preparing food by applying heat, selecting, measuring and combining of ingredients in an ordered procedure for producing safe and edible food. The process encompasses a vast range of methods, tools and combinations of ingredients to alter the flavor, appearance, texture,...
proteins and carbohydrates, expansion of human activity into the night hours, and protection from predators.
East Africa
The earliest evidence of human usage of fire comes from various
archaeologicalArchaeology or archeology is the science that studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis, and interpretation of material culture and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, and landscapes...
sites in
East AfricaEast Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...
, such as Chesowanja near
Lake BaringoLake Baringo is, after Lake Turkana, the most northern of the Great Rift Valley lakes of Kenya, with a surface area of about 130 km² and an elevation of about 970 m. The lake is fed by several rivers, El Molo, Perkerra and Ol Arabel, and has no obvious outlet; the waters are assumed to seep through...
,
Koobi ForaKoobi Fora refers primarily to a region around Koobi Fora Ridge, located on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana in the territory of the nomadic Gabbra people. According to the National Museums of Kenya, the name comes from the Gabbra language:...
, and
OlorgesailieOlorgesailie is a geological formation in East Africa containing a group of Lower Paleolithic archaeological sites. It is on the floor of the Eastern Rift Valley in southern Kenya, southwest of Nairobi along the road to Lake Magadi. Olorgesailie is noted for the large number of Acheulean hand...
in
KenyaThe Republic of Kenya is a country in East Africa. Lying along the Indian Ocean, at the equator, Kenya is bordered by Ethiopia , Somalia , Tanzania , Uganda plus Lake Victoria , and Sudan . The capital city is Nairobi. Kenya spans an area about 85% the size of France or Texas...
. The evidence at Chesowanja consists of red clay
sherdIn archaeology, a sherd is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels as well....
s dated to be 1.42 million years (
MaAnnum is a form of the Latin noun annus meaning year, from which are derived words such as annual and annuity. Annum is the accusative singular of the 2nd declension masculine noun annus , anni...
)
Before PresentBefore Present years is a time scale used in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events in the past occurred. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use 1 January 1950 as the arbitrary origin of the age scale...
(BP). Reheating on the sherds found at the site show that the clay must have been heated to 400°C to harden.
At Koobi Fora, sites FxJjzoE and FxJj50 show evidence of control of fire by
Homo erectusHomo erectus is an extinct species of the genus Homo, which originated in Africa and spread as far as China and Java. Depending on the definition of the species, it is considered to be either a direct ancestor of modern humans, or a separate species which co-existed with the distinct Homo...
at 1.5 Ma BP, with the reddening of sediment that can only come from heating at 200—400°C. A hearth-like depression exists at a site in Olorgesailie, Kenya. Some microscopic
charcoalCharcoal is the blackish residue consisting of impure carbon obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood, sugar, bone char, or other substances in the absence of oxygen...
was found, but it could have resulted from a natural brush fire.
In Gadeb,
EthiopiaEthiopia , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country situated in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Sudan to the west, Kenya to the south, Somalia to the east and Djibouti to the northeast. Its size is 1,100,000 km² with an...
, fragments of welded tuff that appeared to have been burned were found in Locality 8E, but re-firing of the rocks may have occurred due to local volcanic activity. These have been found amongst
H. erectus created Acheulean artifacts.
In the Middle Awash River Valley, cone-shaped depressions of reddish clay were found that could be created by temperatures of 200°C. These features are thought to be burned tree stumps such that they would have fire away from their habitation site. Burnt stones are also found in the Awash Valley, but volcanic welded tuff is also found in the area.
Southern Africa
The earliest definitive evidence of human control of fire was found at
SwartkransSwartkrans is a location in South Africa, around 20 miles from Johannesburg.Swartkrans is a farm near to Sterkfontein, notable for being extremely rich in archaeological material, particularly hominid remains. It was purchased by the University of the Witwatersrand in 1968...
,
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country located at the southern tip of Africa, with a coastline on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. To the north lie Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland, while Lesotho is an independent country surrounded by South Africa.Modern...
. Several burnt bones were found among
AcheuleanAcheulean is the name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with prehistoric hominins during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia and Europe...
tools, bone tools, and bones with hominid-inflicted cut marks. This site also shows some of the earliest evidence of carnivory in
H. erectus. The Cave of Hearths in South Africa has burned deposits dated from 0.2 to 0.7 Ma BP, as do various other sites such as Montagu Cave (0.058 to 0.2 Ma BP) and at the Klasies River Mouth (0.12 to 0.13 Ma BP).
The strongest evidence comes from
Kalambo FallsKalambo Falls on the Kalambo River is a 772ft single drop waterfall on the border of Zambia and Tanzania at the southeast end of Lake Tanganyika. The falls are the second-highest uninterrupted falls in Africa...
in
ZambiaThe Republic of Zambia is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is...
where several artifacts related to the use of fire by humans had been recovered including charred logs, charcoal, reddened areas, carbonized grass stems and plants, and wooden implements which may have been hardened by fire. The site was dated through
radiocarbon datingRadiocarbon dating, or carbon dating, is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to about 60,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present"...
to be at 61,000 BP and 110,000 BP through
amino acid racemizationAmino acid dating is a dating technique used to estimate the age of a specimen in paleobiology, archaeology, forensic science, and other fields. This technique relates changes in amino acid molecules to the time elapsed since they were formed.-Principle:...
.
Fire was used to heat treat
silcreteSilcrete is an indurated soil duricrust formed when silica is dissolved and resolidifies as a cement. It is a hard and resistant material, and though different in origin and nature, appears similar to quartzite...
stones to increase their workability before they were knapped into tools by
StillbayThe Stillbay industry is the name given by the archaeologists Goodwin and van Riet Lowe in 1929 to a mid-Palaeolithic stone tool manufacturing style after the site of Stilbaai in South Africa where it was first described. It may have developed from the earlier Acheulian types...
culture. This research identifies this not only with Stillbay sites that date back to 72,000 BP but sites that could be as old as 164,000 BP.
Near East
A more recently discovered site at
Bnot Ya'akov BridgeBnot Ya'akov Bridge is a bridge across the Jordan River on Highway 91 in northern Israel, approximately eighty aerial miles north of Jerusalem...
,
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
, shows
H. erectus or
H. ergasterHomo ergaster is an extinct hominid species that lived in eastern and southern Africa beginning about 1.9 million years ago during the late Pliocene epoch. Long-standing debate about the classification of H. ergaster has categorised it as a subspecies of Homo erectus, a separate species of African...
fires made between 790 and 690 ka BP. At
Qesem CaveThe Qesem Cave is an archeological site 12 km east of Tel-Aviv in Israel occupied in the Lower Paleolithic by early humans from before 382,000 BP to around 200,000 BP...
12 km east of Tel-Aviv evidence exists of the regular use of
fireThe control of fire by early humans was a turning point in human cultural evolution that allowed for humans to proliferate due to the incorporation of cooked proteins and carbohydrates, expansion of human activity into the night hours, and protection from predators.-East Africa:The earliest...
from before 382,000 BP to around 200,000 BP at the end of Lower Pleistocene. The large quantities of burnt bone and moderately heated soil lumps suggest butchering and prey-defleshing took place near fireplaces.
Far East
In
XihouduXihoudu is an archological site located in the Shanxi Province of China. The site dates to the Paleolithic Age. In total 32 stone implements were found at the site....
in Shanxi Province, there is evidence of burning by the black, gray, and grayish-green discoloration of mammalian bones. Another site in China is Yuanmou in Yunnan Province, where blackened mammal bones have been found.
At
TrinilTrinil is a palaeoanthropological site on the banks of the Bengawan Solo River in Ngawi Regency, East Java Province, Indonesia. It was at this site in 1891 that the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois discovered the first early hominid remains to be found outside of Europe: the famous "Java Man" specimen....
,
JavaJava is an island of Indonesia and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. Once the centre of powerful Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, Islamic sultanates, and the core of the colonial Dutch East Indies, Java now plays a dominant role in the economic and political life of Indonesia...
, similar blackened bone and charcoal deposits have been found among
H. erectus fossils.
Zhoukoudian
At
ZhoukoudianZhoukoudian or Choukoutien is a cave system in Beijing, China. It has yielded many archaeological discoveries, including one of the first specimens of Homo erectus, dubbed Peking Man, and a fine assemblage of bones of the gigantic hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris...
in China, evidence of fire is as old as 500,000 to 1.5 million BP. Fire in Zhoukoudian is suggested by the presence of burned bones, burned chipped-stone artifacts, charcoal, ash, and hearths alongside
H. erectus fossils in Layer 10 at Locality 1. This evidence comes from Locality 1 at Zhoukoudian where several bones were found to be uniformly black to grey. The extracts from the bones were determined to be characteristic of burned bone rather than manganese staining. These residues also showed IR spectra for oxides, and a bone that was turquoise was reproduced in the laboratory by heating some of the other bones found in Layer 10. At the site, the same effect may have been due to natural heating, as the effect was produced on white, yellow, and black bones. Layer 10 itself is described as ash with biologically produced silicon, aluminum, iron, and potassium, but wood ash remnants such as siliceous aggregates are missing. Among these are possible hearths "represented by finely laminated silt and clay interbedded with reddish-brown and yellow brown fragments of organic matter, locally mixed with limestone fragments and dark brown finely laminated silt, clay and organic matter." The site itself does not show that fires were made in Zhoukoudian, but the association of blackened bones with stone artifacts at least shows that humans did control fire at the time of the habitation of the Zhoukoudian cave.
Europe
Multiple sites in Europe have also shown evidence of use of fire by
H. erectus. The oldest has been found in
VértesszőlősVértesszőlős is a village in Komárom-Esztergom county, Hungary. It is most known for the archaeological site where the remains of "Samu", a prehistoric man were found.- External links :*...
,
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
, where evidence of burned bones but no charcoal had been found. At Torralba and
AmbronaAn archaeological site in northern Spain where large mammal remains and stone tools from 400,000 years ago suggest early hominid hunting or scavenging .See also: Torralba -References:...
,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
, show charcoal and wood, Acheulean stone tools dated 0.3 to 0.5 Ma BP.
At
Saint-Estève-JansonSaint-Estève-Janson is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in southern France.-References:*...
in
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
, there is evidence of five hearths and reddened earth in the Escale Cave. These hearths have been dated to 200 ka BP.
The mean evidence states that widespread control of fire began 125,000 BP.
Fire in the Americas
Although humans had been using fire for hundreds of thousands of years, an example of the powerful effects of the use of fire is the cumulative impact of burning by Native Americans. After arriving a few thousand years earlier, their use of fire profoundly altered the landscape of both continents. At about 4,000 years BP, the Archaic Indian cultures began practicing agriculture. Technology had advanced to the point that pottery was becoming common, and the small-scale felling of trees became feasible. Concurrently, the Archaic Indians began using fire in a widespread manner. Intentional burning of vegetation was taken up to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories, thereby making travel easier and facilitating the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants that were important for both food and medicines. The result in many regions was "the conversion of forest to grassland,
savannaA savanna, or savannah, is a grassland ecosystem characterized by the trees being sufficiently small or widely spaced so that the canopy does not close...
, scrub, open woodland, and forest with grassy openings". As in many savannas in the world, the
cerradoThe cerrado is a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil. The cerrado is characterised by an enormous range of plant and animal biodiversity...
of South America have been coexisting with fire since ancient times; initially as natural fires caused by lightning or volcanic activity, and later caused by man. After the death of 90% of the native population around 500 years ago, grasslands, savanna, and woodlands succeeded to closed forest.
Changes to behavior
One of the primary changes to the behavior of humans due to the control of fire was the utilization of the light. With the light from fires, activity was no longer restricted to the day time. In addition, animals in general avoid fire and smoke. Another change that fire provided was the opening of the nutrition in cooked proteins.
Richard WranghamRichard W. Wrangham is a British primatologist. He is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and his research group is now part of the newly established Department of Human Evolutionary Biology....
of
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and currently comprises ten separate academic units...
argues that cooking of plant foods may have triggered brain expansion by allowing
complex carbohydratesPolysaccharides are polymeric carbohydrate structures, formed of repeating units joined together by glycosidic bonds. These structures are often linear, but may contain various degrees of branching. Polysaccharides are often quite heterogeneous, containing slight modifications of the repeating unit...
in
starchStarch or amylum is a polysaccharide carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds.Starch is produced by all green plants as an energy store and is a major food source for humans....
y foods to become more digestible and in effect allow humans to absorb more calories.
Changes to diet
Stahl suggested that because of the indigestible components of plants such as raw cellulose and starch, certain parts of the plant such as stems, mature leaves, enlarged roots, and
tuberTubers are various types of modified plant structures that are enlarged to store nutrients. They are used by plants to overwinter and regrow the next year and as a means of asexual reproduction. Two different groups of tubers are: stem tubers, and root tubers.- Stem tubers :A stem tuber forms from...
s would not have been part of the hominid diet prior to the advent of fire. Instead, the diet consisted of the parts of the plants that were made of simpler sugars and carbohydrates such as seeds, flowers, and fleshy fruits. The incorporation of toxins into the seeds and similar carbohydrate sources also affected the diet, as cyanogenic glycosides such as those found in linseed,
cassavaCassava is a woody shrub of the Euphorbiaceae native to South America that is extensively cultivated as an annual crop in tropical and subtropical regions for its edible starchy tuberous root, a major source of carbohydrates...
, and manioc are made non-toxic through cooking. The teeth of
H. erectus and the wear on the teeth reflect the consumption of foods such as tough meats and crisp root vegetables.
The cooking of meat, as evident from burned and blackened mammal bones, makes the meats easier to eat and easier to attain the nutrition from proteins by making the meat itself easier to digest. The amount of energy needed to digest cooked meat is less than raw meat, and cooking gelatinizes
collagenCollagen is the main protein of connective tissue in animals and the most abundant protein in mammals, making up about 25% to 35% of the whole-body protein content. It is naturally found exclusively in metazoa, including sponges. In muscle tissue it serves as a major component of endomysium...
and other connective tissues as well as "opens up tightly woven carbohydrate molecules for easier absorption."
See also
- Human evolution
Human evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the origin and evolution of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominids, great apes and placental mammals...
- Hunting hypothesis
In paleoanthropology, the hunting hypothesis is the hypothesis that human evolution was primarily influenced by the activity of hunting, and that the activity of hunting distinguished human ancestors from other primates....
- Making fire
Many different techniques for making fire exist. Smoldering plants and trees, or any source of hot coals from natural fires is the oldest way to make a fire. Other ancient techniques involve a fire drill or fire stick that is rotated or rubbed on a base...
- Savanna theory
- Sociocultural evolution
Sociocultural evolution is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social evolution, describing how cultures and societies have developed over time...