On Wed, 16 Oct 2002 06:49:04 +0900, Tom <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Certainly there was use of fire going back 500,000 years,
>and I agree there was probably cooking too. But we don't
>know how much. Steadily increasing until now is my guess.

It seems that with more discoveries of paleolithic living sites,
there is more evidence, whether pits, or other methods eg:

http://www.s-t.com/daily/07-98/07-24-98/c02li088.htm

Stiner said the Mousterians lived by gathering wild plants and
hunting boar, gazelles, fallow deer and tortoises.
The Mousterians used every part of the animals, skinning them with
flint tools and scraping the marrow out of the bones. Stiner said
she found hammerstone marks and fractures on the bones, indicating
they were broken to get at the marrow.
Like other peoples living in the middle Paleolithic era, the
Mousterians did not have pots or pans. Blackened bits of tortoise
shell in Stiner's collection are evidence that the catch of the day
was roasted on the open fire.

Philip Thrift
http://geocities.com/paleofitness