Hominid Use of Fire in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene: A Review of the Evidence [and Comments and Replies]

On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe

“…The remains of such grass and forest fires can become associated with archeological find materials. Hence, charcoal, charred bone material, and heated flints do not necessarily indicate anthropogenic fires (2). At open-air sites, direct evidence for human fires, such as charcoal, can be easily removed by natural processes, including erosion by water or by wind (16).…”

“…Although stone tool use and manufacture were regular activities from at least 2.6 million y ago (1), the timing of the human control of fire is a controversial issue (2), with some claims for regular fire use by early hominins in Africa at ∼1.6 million y ago (3)(4)(5). Longer chronologies for the use of fire include Wrangham's recent hypothesis that fire was a central evolutionary force toward larger human brains (6)(7)(8)(9): eating cooked foods made early hominin digestion easier, and the energy formerly spent on digestion was freed up, enabling their energy-expensive brains to grow.…”

The energetic significance of cooking

“…We observe, however, that cooking contributes additional benefits that are not readily achieved with non-thermal processing, including the gelatinization of starch, denaturation of proteins, and killing of foodborne pathogens. Although the earliest unequivocal hearths date only to around 250 kya (James, 1989), earlier dates for the control of fire cannot be rejected archaeologically. Since cooking should have been evolutionarily significant, and since the energetic and textural impacts of cooking appear consistent with morphological adaptations signaling high dietary quality in H. erectus, the hypothesis that cooking began with H. erectus remains viable.…”

“…The problem is that traces of fire normally disappear rapidly: even as recently as the Mesolithic, fireplaces can be invisible (Sergant et al, 2006). Nevertheless fire was certainly controlled by 250 kya (James, 1989). Further back in time, few people would reject evidence for control of fire at 400 kya from such sites as Beeches Pit (Gowlett et al, 2005;Preece et al, 2006), Schöningen (Thieme, 2000;Thieme, 2005), and Ménez-Drégan (Monnier et al, 1994).…”

“…Evidence for control of fire is also impressive at 790 kya at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov on the Jordan River (Goren-Inbar et al, 2004;Alperson-Afil, 2008), and there are several African sites older than 1 mya where control of fire has been reported as plausible or likely (Wrangham, 2006). But the interpretation of these older sites is open to question (James, 1989). As a result of the way the evidence dwindles erratically in the past, archaeological data currently offer no certainty when fire was first controlled.…”