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Mastering Fire |
Mastery of fire was a crucial step in the evolution of our species. Fire provided protection against predators, allowed cooking to make foods more digestable; and, most important, provided the warmth needed to survive in northern latitudes. This allowed early man to settle all over Europe, migrate into Siberia and cross a dry Bering Strait into the American continent. Fire was also crucial to many other developments: it would be used to hollow out tree trunks and make dug-out canoes and, later, would allow pottery and the extraction of metal... thus ending the Stone Age.
Although hominins probably used fire as early as 1 Mya, the ability to start fires came much later, around 125 Kya [ Wikipedia ].
Many historians assumed that Neanderthals could start fire during their occupation of Europe (from ~ 200 Kya to 40 Kya); this, because they survived two glacial periods and melted tar to fix stone points to their spears. But a recent article concludes that - like in the film Quest for Fire - Neanderthals could only maintain fire but not start it. The authors suggests that Neanderthals 1) could stand some cold with a compact hairy body and 2) took refuge in Southern Europe when necessary.
Widespread mastery of fire dates to approximately 125,000 years ago, and it appears that Homo Sapiens was responsible. [Ref]
Videos from the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University.