Scientists have confirmed early evidence, dating back nearly 800.000 years, that shows humans cooking food through the controlled use of fire. They come from Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, an archaeological site in Israel.
The traces? Pharyngeal teeth belonging to what researchers believe were enormous carp (up to 2 meters, 6,6 feet long) from nearby Hula Lake. Analysis of size and structure found that these teeth were exposed to high temperatures, but less than 500°C (932°F).
Humans used to cook food as early as 800.000 years ago
The temperatures to which these remains were exposed, the team says, clearly indicate that the fish had been cooked deliberately, and not directly over an open flame. Had the fish been thrown directly into a fire as waste or fuel, or caught in a natural fire, they would have shown signs of much higher temperatures.
“The large quantity of fish remains found at the site demonstrates their frequent consumption by early humans. They developed special techniques for cooking food,” the doctors said Irit Zohar e Marion Prevost, authors of the study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution (I link it here).
These new discoveries demonstrate not only the importance that freshwater habitats and fish had for prehistoric man's livelihood, but also the ability of prehistoric humans to control fire to cook food. And even their understanding of the benefits of cooking food before eating it.
Marion Prevost, Tel Aviv University
A huge leap
The discovery at the Israeli site enormously shifts the first signs of human control of fire. The oldest evidence dates back 170.000 years. Today we leap back another 600.000 years.
And it's likely that humans started cooking food even earlier: there are signs that hominids like Homo Erectus learned to control fire over a million years ago, for heat and light. Even before he realized its potential for baking, tool making and other uses.
With the advent of the new and more precise methods of dating we will end up discovering, pass me the joke, that the famous primordial broth was a fish soup.
