Archaeologists in Britain say they have found the earliest known evidence of deliberate fire-making, dating to around 400,000 years ago.
  • FALGSConaut [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    16·
    1 month ago

    Exactly when humans and our ancestors started using fire is one of those questions that is extremely difficult (impossible?) to answer with any certainty due to the difficulties in finding evidence. We have to get lucky (in this case it appears the site was covered by a pond relatively soon after it’s use) for any part of a fire to be preserved.

    For example say you went into the woods, set up a rudimentary firepit, used it for a couple of days, and left. Now think about how hard it would be to find that exact spot in a year, or 5, 10, etc! And that’s with you being the one to deposit it in the first place! Now think about how little would be left and how hard that would be to even recognize as the remnants of a campfire after tens or hundreds of thousands of years!

    I think control of fire has been with us as long as we’ve been recognizable as Homo sapiens and most likely for a great deal longer. There’s a very interesting book I read years ago called Catching Fire (no not that one) by Richard Wrangham in which he argues that control of fire and the ability to cook food that comes with it is what really set off our brain development & anatomical changes that differentiate us from the other primates

    • Abracadaniel [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      4·
      1 month ago

      Some use “human” to refer to any species in the genus Homo. “Homo” was chosen as the name for the taxon because it means human, basically.

      And yes, these were Homo neanderthalensis.