On Thu, 23 Nov 2001 16:00:09 -0500, Quentin Grady wrote:

>Roasting game on a spit is very low tech compared to boiling some
>beans.    That is not to say you don't have a point.  Just that more
>technology is required to cook legumes to remove antinutrients.
>Is pottery 2 million years old?

A few years ago I checked on the earliest pottery records available. The earliest record I could find was a Japanese record of about 15, 000 years ago. Pottery only came into common use around the world about 13,000 years BCE, as I recollect. I had thought it would have been much earlier.

Anyway I know water can be boiled in a pit lined with an old animal hide. I do this every year at a demonstration of ancient technology  put on by our archaeological society. Just a matter of rolling red hot stones into the pit.

And I've read that it's possible to boil water in a hide hung over a fire. But anyone I know who's tried this has failed miserably.

Tom Gentles,
Regina, SK