>Amadeus Schmidt    wrote

>> The more unique the technique (like fire or stone tools) the less
>> competition, the more success.
>> They daytime bipedal moving gains access to more tubers and carrion.
>> Fire doubles the calories and scares off predators.
>> That's a niche, maybe the explanation for the success of h.erectus.

>Esben Brun wrote.

>DAWN   OF  HUMANITY:
>Darkness on the savannah!
>exept for the FIRE - warming and protecting  us
>roasting the roots we dug up during the day
>and melting the marrow in the bones we found.
>The glowing  FIRE,  the darkness- the others.

Perhaps fire could also have been used to get a greater proportion of the meat from killed animals. Instead of waiting 'til all the other big predators had finished they could have used fire to scare away other feeding animals while meat(and giblets) still remained.

I once accompanied a game ranger through a large and aggressive herd of elephants in Uganda. There were several hundred feeding on the tall grass in a flood plain of the Nile River. We moved slowly toward the herd. Then when one of the elephants appeared ready to charge the ranger would light a fire to a clump of dry grass. The elephants would quickly back off several hundred meters. Then he just repeated the process until we were right through the herd. I'm sure our ancestors could have frightened lions and hyenas from killed animals as their fear of fire would likely have overcome their reluctance to leave the kill. Our ancestors could have done this once they mastered the ability to carry a source of fire.

Tom Gentles
Regina, SK