When did human ancestors discover fire?

Once humans mastered the power of fire, they climbed up the food chain. But when did this history-changing event happen?

The ability to harness fire forever changed the fate of humans and our place in the food chain. In the early days, fire helped us cook, transforming us into a species that made efficient use of food's energy. No longer relying on foraging, we could extract large amounts of calories from cooked meat. Fire also helped our ancestors create more effective tools and weapons.

Importantly, we still don't know when humans discovered fire or how they transformed that savage power into a tool for everyday use.

However, according to archaeologist John Gowlett of the University of Liverpool, we can still confirm that human ancestors knew about fire about 2 million years ago . This was the prosperous period of Homo erectus - Upright Man , the first ancient primate to possess the balanced characteristics of the modern human body.

Illustration of the period when humans first discovered fire - (Photo: Johannes Roots/ArtStation).

' Our ancestors were scavengers around fires, which means they knew the benefits of fire. When they encountered fire on their travels, they would observe or follow the path of the fire ,' says Gowlett. After encountering a natural fire, these wild individuals may have waited for the fire to die down, then gone to see what Nature's chef had cooked for them.

In a 2016 paper published in the Royal Society Journal of Biological Sciences, Professor Gowlett argues that the discovery of fire did not happen overnight. ' There is no doubt that early humans were aware of the existence of fire, as were modern-day savannah primates. But it was not a single discovery, and the discovery of fire can be seen as a long-term process .'

Following the process of gathering food after the fire, it is likely that prehistoric people sought to prolong the fire that was already going on . That means these humanoids not only knew about fire, they were starting to learn how to use it profitably; perhaps they used branches and sticks to start their own fires. According to Mr. Gowlett, prehistoric people may have also used charred animal dung to maintain the fire.

The phenomenon of natural forest fires may have helped our ancestors learn about fire - (Photo: Internet).

Furthermore, prehistoric people could also take advantage of the heat emitted from tree roots after forest fires , using them as a natural oven system. However, researchers admit that they are not sure when this process took place, especially when there is no archaeological evidence showing the existence of 'natural stoves' hidden underground.

Early fireplaces

Fire leaves its mark, and archaeological evidence suggests that humans were starting fires (and probably cooking more) as early as 800,000 years ago ; some archaeologists believe that hearths may have been around even earlier, as far back as 1.5 million years ago. While we don't have an exact date, we can safely assume that this is when prehistoric humans began gathering around cozy hearths.

790,000-year-old stones found in Israel in 2004, bearing traces of fire - (Photo: Smithsonian).

As we cooked more, our ancestors' intestines (including their structure and microorganisms) and teeth changed, according to Harvard anthropologist Richard Wrangham. He believes that once humans lived on the African grasslands instead of under the dense forest canopy, they learned to cook the fresh food around them. Root vegetables and hunted meat became easier to swallow and digest under the heat of a fire.

Modern humans cannot live on raw food, because we evolved after learning to cook with fire, says Mr Gowlett.

Not only our ancestors knew how to use fire

Filipe Natalio, an archaeologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, claims that Neanderthals also used fire to cook and make tools . While we were lighting fires in Africa, Neanderthals were using fire to explore Europe. When they met in the Levant (now the land of Israel, Lebanon, parts of Syria and western Jordan), our ancestors and Neanderthals lived together and lit their own fires.

Illustration of a Neanderthal hanging at the Neanderthal Museum in Croatia - (Photo: Nikola Solic/Reuters).

It was also during this period that prehistoric humans learned to use fire to make tools. Around 400,000 years ago, both our ancestors and Neanderthals used fire to create sharp blades. They learned to control the temperature of the fire so that the tools would not explode under the heat. ' When humans left Africa and entered the Levant, they hunted smaller animals, which would require small blades to remove all the meat ,' says archaeologist Natalio.

Advances in archaeological technology mean we can travel deeper and deeper into the past. According to both Gowlett and Natalio, archaeologists continue to find evidence of fire being present in prehistoric societies. Modern chimpanzees understand the existence of fire, so it's no surprise that our ancestors knew about it, and understood how to control it.