the latest issue of Science magazine reports on research showing
hominin (human) control of fire 790K years ago. Prior to this research,
the best evidence of early fire use was in the 250-300K years ago range.
This finding also indirectly supports Wrangham's hypothesis that cooking
is a biological trait for humans.
The article is:
Evidence of Hominin Control of Fire at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel
Naama Goren-Inbar et al.
Science
30 April 2004, vol. 304, #5671, pp. 725-727.
There's also a separate news article on the study in the same issue.
Please read the full-text of the article before commenting on the
article.
Tom Billings