The deliberate use of fire to cook food is very ancient indeed.
Exactly how ancient is a matter of debate, but even the more
conservative estimates go back several hundred thousand years. Some
scientists place the origins of cooking even earlier:
"There's a lot of agreement among anthropologists that human ancestors
were cooking their food as long ago as 250,000 to 500,000 years, but
[Richard] Wrangham and a few of his colleagues see evidence that cooks
spoiled the broth as long ago as 2 million years. That's about the
time when our ancestors became less like apes and more like humans.
There's more agreement on how cooking started than when. Most
anthropologists think bush fires, started by lightning, baked or
singed exposed tubers and other roots. Human ancestors tried the fired
food and the rest, as they say, is history.
One of the big unknowns in this scenario is when our ancestors started
to build their own fires. Many clues point to the conclusion that
pre-people lit their own fires about 300,000 years ago, but much less
positive evidence hints that they controlled fire a million and a half
years earlier. Either way, use of fire for warmth, or to keep away
large animals with sharp teeth, would have hastened the origin of
roast roots and meat."
Harvard Gazette: Cooking up quite a story
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/06.13/01-cooking.html
"Dr. Richard Wrangham, a Harvard professor of anthropology, attempts
to explain why we are alive today and have not become extinct because
we are so poorly designed. He thinks that humans survived because they
learned to cook. Other anthropologists think that humans have been
cooking for only 300,000 years, which is not long enough for major
evolutionary changes to occur. Dr. Wrangham proposes that humans have
survived because they were able to cook almost 2 million years ago, or
1.5 million years longer than previous evidence suggested. This could
explain why we don't have the teeth and digestive tracts like either
plant-eating or meat-eating animals. Dr. Wrangham thinks it explains
many other human features, too."
Dr. Gabe Mirkin: Cooking and Human Evolution
http://www.drmirkin.com/nutrition/1147.html
"Hamburgers and hot dogs were not on the menu at the first known
barbecues, according to recent research that suggests early outdoor
diners instead feasted on antelope, other meats and vegetarian dishes.
The research consists of two back-to-back studies. The first concerns
what is believed to be a 1 to 1.5 million-year-old South African fire,
which could represent the earliest evidence for human-controlled fire
and the world's first known barbecue.
The second study describes 790,000-year-old possible hearth fires in
Israel. This second study, published in the current issue of Science,
presents the first evidence for human use of fire in Europe and Asia."
Discovery News
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20040426/bbq.html
"Researchers in Israel have found that early humans used fire 790,000
years ago, a discovery that helps explain how they were able to
migrate to chilly northern latitudes.
The site in northern Israel where archeologists found signs that early
humans used fire to cook food has been described as a crossroads
between Africa, Europe and Asia. Early humans are thought to have
migrated to Europe 800,000 years ago. Researchers often have
speculated that they were using fire by then for comfort in cold
weather, but they had no proof. This new material indicating fire use
790,000 years ago is three times as old as previously accepted
evidence...
Not that the researchers found bonfires or hearths. Instead, they
spent seven years sifting through thousands of tiny pieces of wood,
seeds and rock in an area where there was evidence that early man had
lived. They found that only a small portion of these artifacts were
burnt -- evidence, they argue, they were blackened in a controlled
fire, not a natural wildfire...
They also found fruit and grains that had been cooked, evidence that
the people who once lived at the site used fire to prepare food. Other
respected archeologists are calling the find significant. 'I think
they have made by the far the best case yet for humanly controlled
fire before 250,000 years ago,' Richard Klein, a researcher at
Stanford University in California, says in a companion article in
Science."
The Globe and Mail: Scientists excavate earliest evidence of fire use
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040430/FIRE30/TPScience/
You'll find links to additional articles about the Israeli discovery
in this answer to a related question:
Google Answers: Archaeology or Anthropology
http://www.answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=341002
Regarding the matter of why other primates do not cook their food, it
seems likely that this is related to the relatively higher reasoning
powers of humans. The habit of cooking one's food depends upon a
reliable heat source. Only a creature capable of overcoming the fear
of fire is likely to develop a tradition of cooking food. As far as we
know, man is the only creature to have "domesticated" fire, using it
to achieve his own ends.
Google search strategy:
Google Web Search: "earliest evidence" "cooking OR cooked"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22earliest+evidence%22+%22cooking+OR+cooked
Thanks for an interesting question! If anything is unclear, or if a
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pinkfreud |
