> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paleolithic Eating Support List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of William
> Sent: Tuesday, November 28, 2006 5:21 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Cooking - was Cooking Fats
> ... Oy, not that again. [cooking in fairly common use going back at least
300,000 years, according to scientists]
> IIRC, the argument was that fire implies cooking. My take was
> that well
> trained (by their mothers) cooking-obsessed "scientists"
> couldn't imagine
> that fire was not necessarily used for cooking.
Actually, I thought I was being relatively conservative with that figure.
The most liberal estimates put cooking as far back as 1.8 million years or
so ago, with Dr. Richard W. Wrangham of Harvard probably being the most
famous advocate of this view. I think that the Harvard people do go to far
in their speculations on this, which conveniently coincide with their
politically correct views that proto-humans ate more plant foods than is
generally accepted and that the role of females as food providers was larger
than is generally accepted.
The most conservative consensus on earliest widespread use of cooking fires
is 125,000 years ago and on earliest controlled fires is 230,000 years ago.
There are still questions about what humans are descended from the earlier
fire users, especially given the recent Out of Africa hypothesis (though it
is currently still controversial) in which all living humans descend from
people lived in Africa 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. However, even 100,000
years is enough time for humans to have adapted to eating cooked meats.
Even if we accept the most cautious views that the widespread controlled
fire evidence only goes back 230,000 years, Dean Esmay had a good question
relating to this back in 1997:
Date: Wed, 9 Jul 1997 17:49:09 -0400
Reply-To: Paleolithic Eating Support List
<[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Paleolithic Eating Support List
<[log in to unmask]>
From: Dean Esmay <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Genes and Paleofood (Fire & Cooking)
...
<Evidence for use of fire in general seems to go back about a half million
years or so. Clear evidence of use of fire for cooking is much more
sketchy. I for one find it absolutely impossible to believe it would take
hundreds of thousands of years for anyone to think to put a hunk of meat on
a stick over a fire. Humans have a weird fascination with fire as it is
(we're the only animal that does, apparently) and we like to stick things in
fires.
No way to prove it of course, so maybe I'm wrong, but I find it thouroughly
unbelievable that we would have fire for half a million years before we got
around to tasting what it did to our food.>
Dean's question is a good one. Do we really believe that humans controlled
fire by 230,000 years ago but didn't widely adopt cooking until 100,000
years later?
---------
Here are my sources (I apologize for not providing them in my initial post
on this subject):
Note--since this list is ordered by dates and sites there are multiple
mentions of some references
COOKING FIRES 1.6 TO 1.8 MILLION YEARS AGO?
Cooking, and How It Slew the Beast Within, 28 May 2002, Natalie Angier, The
New York Times,
http://www.leakeyfoundation.org/newsandevents/n4_x.jsp?id=2765
Dr. Richard W. Wrangham, Harvard anthropologist, author of The Evolution Of
Cooking, proposes that the use of fire to cook food could date back almost 2
million years and could have contributed to the evolution of Homo erectus,
with its smaller teeth, from earlier forms that had larger teeth, such as H.
habilis and Australopithecus africanus.
Cooking: How did the invention of cooking change body size, bring about
monogomy and give people bigger brains? 24 March 2001,
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2001/262879.htm#
"I know that there are a number of people who say 1.6 million easily,
possibly well back past 2." --Dr. Jamie Jones, Harvard anthropologist, a
colleague of Richard Wrangham
* Makapan Valley, Africa - controlled fire 1 to 1.8 million years ago
World Heritage Sites in South Africa, Far & Wild Safaris,
http://www.africasafari.co.za/St-lucia.htm
Chesnowanja and Swartkrans, Africa - controlled fire and possible cooking
(controversial) 1 to 1.5 million years ago
Early human fire mastery revealed, By Paul Rincon, BBC News Online science
staff, Last updated: Thursday, 29 April 2004, 18:01 GMT 19:01 UK,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3670017.stm
When was fire first controlled by human beings?
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview2c.shtml
HUMAN EVOLUTION: Did Cooked Tubers Spur the Evolution of Big Brains?
Elizabeth Pennisi. Science, Volume 283, Number 5410 Issue of 26 Mar 1999,
pp. 2004 - 2005 http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Pennisi_99.html
See commentary by Ralph M. Rowlett, Department of Anthropology, Missouri
University
World Heritage Sites in South Africa, Far & Wild Safaris,
http://www.africasafari.co.za/St-lucia.htm
* Okote tuff at Koobi Fora in Kenya - controlled fire about 1.6 million
years ago
HUMAN EVOLUTION: Did Cooked Tubers Spur the Evolution of Big Brains?
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Pennisi_99.html
See commentary by Ralph M. Rowlett, Department of Anthropology, Missouri
University
CONTROLLED FIRE 690,000 TO 790,000 YEARS AGO
* Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel - controlled fires 690,000 to 790,000 years
ago - used by Homo erectus or Homo ergaster
Early human fire mastery revealed. By Paul Rincon. BBC News Online science
staff. Last updated: Thursday, 29 April 2004, 18:01 GMT 19:01 UK.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3670017.stm
Science 30 April 2004: Vol. 304. no. 5671, pp. 725 - 727. DOI:
10.1126/science.1095443.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/304/5671/725
CONTROLLED FIRES BEFORE 380,000 YEARS AGO
* Terra Amata, France - controlled fire use 380,000 to 450,000 years ago
Terra Amata. By W.J. Kowalski.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/europe/terraamata.html
Terra Amata
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/archaeology/sites/europe/terraamata.html
CONSENSUS ON CONTROLLED FIRES BEFORE 230,000 YEARS AGO
* Zhoukoudian in China - controlled fires 230,000 to 460,000 years ago
HUMAN EVOLUTION: Did Cooked Tubers Spur the Evolution of Big Brains?
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Pennisi_99.html
See commentary by Ralph M. Rowlett, Department of Anthropology, Missouri
University
When was fire first controlled by human beings?
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview2c.shtml
"Earliest dates for control of fire accepted by skeptical critics. At the
other end of the timescale, these same critics who are only willing to
consider the most unequivocal evidence will still admit that at least by
230,000 years ago there is enough good evidence at at least one site to
establish fire was under control at this time by humans." [Sources: James,
Steven R. (1989) "Hominid use of fire in the lower and middle Pleistocene"
and Benditt, John (1989) "Cold water on the fire: a recent survey casts
doubt on evidence for early use of fire."]
CONSENSUS ON WIDESPREAD USE OF COOKING FIRES BY 125,000 YEARS AGO
When was fire first controlled by human beings?
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview2c.shtml
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