Why you would be different without the discovery of fire
One of the first extremely important revolutions in Homo genus life was the discovery of fire. Our brain and not only wouldn’t be this way without it.
Homo
When I write “Homo” I mean the Homo genus, including every species of Homo existed. Some species are Habilis, Erectus, Neanderthal, Sapiens (our species), Floresiensis. During prehistory there were many more species of Homo.
Maybe I will write an article about how animals are classified. Briefly: there are “families“, “genera“ and “species“. You reading this article are part of Hominidae family, Homo genus, Sapiens species. Note that “genera” is the plural of “genus”.
Summary of important dates
- 2.5 millions years ago first Homo born in Africa. It is called Homo Habilis.
- 2 millions years ago Homo Erectus born. It is the longest-lived species and the one who discovered the fire.
- In the period between 2 millions years ago and 200.000 years ago more other Homo Species born. Our species, Homo sapiens, hasn’t been born yet.
How was the life of Humankind 2 millions years ago? More details about that and an introduction to this article in the article below.
- 200.000 years ago Homo Sapiens born. Nowadays it is the only species still alive.
- 70.000 years ago cognitive revolution started. Homo Sapiens begins to differentiate himself from the other animals, including the other Homo species. Homo Sapiens starts spreading out of Africa.
- 50.000 years ago Homo Erectus became extinct.
- 30.000 years ago Homo Neanderthal became extinct.
- 13.000 years ago Homo Floresiensis became extinct. Now Homo Sapiens is the only species of Homo on earth.
Discovery of fire
In the previous article (the one linked above) we saw that Homo at the beginning wasn’t nothing special. It was living like the other animals. It was in the middle of the food chain.
By chance about 1.4 millions years ago fire was discovered by Homo Erectus. Most likely it was discovered by several different groups of Homo Erectus in that period of time. At the beginning it wasn’t used daily so a little changed in the Homo life and in the food chain.
A revolution underway
Homo genus (so not only Homo Erectus) started using fire daily about 300.000 years ago. A revolution was underway.
What was the advantages of fire?
They were many. The more important:
- Heat source
- Light source
- Weapon against other animals
- Food finally could be cooked
What was special about the taming of the fire
Each animal had and has nowadays particular characteristics which helps him to live better, to defend itself better and so on. All this characteristics though, whatever they are, depends on its body. The other animals were fighting for survival exploiting strengths given by evolution. The same did Homo genus till fire discovery.
Homo genus with the taming of the fire started to fight for survival using a force independent from its body. It has found an highly manageable force, potentially with unlimited strengths. A weak woman could have created fire and fight against a lion! The other animals hadn’t this possibility.
The brain was growing
We saw in the previous article as the brain and its neural link kept slowly growing over the years. Initially that was a problem as the brain didn’t bring important advantages but required much energy.
The importance of cooking food
Thanks to fire was finally possible to cook the food. Here is the key! Why?
Cooking the food brought mainly three advantages:
- More variety of food eatable. (Es. potatoes, rice and not only could now be added to the human diet). This means less time spent looking for food.
- Cooking the food, germs and parasites were killed.
- The food was easier to digest. Intestine was making less effort and it could be shortened by evolution.
Bigger intestine was making more effort and needed more energy
Remember? Homo was struggling to give energy to the brain. Meanwhile intestine was asking for much energy too as food before the use of fire was harder to digest.
Finally intestine started asking for less energy
Using fire the intestine started to make less effort and over the years it was shortened by evolution. The last part is extremely important! The intestine started asking for less energy, so more energy could be addressed to the brain. This allowed it to develop better.
Homo genus began to predominate over the other animals
Homo using fire was exploiting a force independent from his body. Meanwhile over the years the brain started developing in an important direction. Homo started to climb the food chain.
Bibliography
This article has been possible thanks to the book: “From Animals into Gods. A Brief History of Humankind.“ by Yuval Noah Harari.
Conclusion
I tried to make you understand briefly why the discovery of fire has been essential for the development of our brain and not only. Without fire we would be different. Our prehistory and history would be different.
I hope I completed the task successfully.
Why and how Homo Sapiens predominated over the other species of Homo? Why nowadays the Homo Sapiens is the only species of Homo alive? Why are we anxious and aggressive by nature? Stay tuned for the next articles!
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