WEBVTT - Strike the Match, Part 1 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:09.680 Welcome to Invention, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey 0:00:09.800 --> 0:00:12.320 you welcome to Invention. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.480 I'm Joe McCormick. So around this time of year especially, 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.720 I I really love to get into a little extra 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.239 you know, Chinese culture, Chinese history. Uh. And then on 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:27.400 this show, Chinese Invention, and we've covered various topics already 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.920 in the show with strong Chinese roots, and I was 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.080 thinking maybe this would be the time to discuss gunpowder 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.320 and fireworks. But then, as is often the case when 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.560 we're researching this show, I started looking up sources, started 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:44.040 reading about the topics, and in the process discovered something 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:48.400 even more exciting, more exciting than fireworks. Yes, and and 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:52.120 I realized it may sound alarming, uh, that it is 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.680 more exciting than fireworks, but it is. And it is 0:00:55.000 --> 0:00:56.840 the match stick. I thought you were gonna say, like 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:03.120 quantum fireworks. No, no, the common matchstick. And uh. Indeed, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.720 when I told my wife about this topic for the week, 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:08.080 her initial response was just to laugh and say, oh, yeah, 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:10.840 that's way more exciting than fireworks. I'm with you, man, 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:14.360 I think she's wrong, and you're right. Well, here's the 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.200 thing I'm not gonna argue that fireworks are not exciting, 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:21.360 because fireworks are tremendous. Everybody loves fireworks, except for those 0:01:21.400 --> 0:01:23.920 I guess who are frightened by them and dogs. Dogs 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:26.720 don't love fireworks. But anyway, humans tend to love fireworks. 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:29.160 And we'll probably come back to fireworks and gunpowder in 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:33.600 the future. But the modern matchtick is indeed amazing, and 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:35.880 but you just might need to see it again with 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.080 fresh eyes to try and see it through the eyes 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:41.199 of a child. Yeah, why do they need to tell 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:44.600 children not to play with matches because they're resist Because 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.200 they're awesome. They're like really fun to play with. They 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.920 are I mean, granted, yes they are. They are potentially 0:01:51.000 --> 0:01:53.280 dangerous as well, but but you just think of the 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.640 experience of it. Here's this wooden stick, you know, generally 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.720 tipped with like a reddish coating. Uh, you get it 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:02.240 out of this cool little box. Even the match box 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.560 was always interesting because it's like this doll sized casket 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.720 or a bug sized casket. Right, it feels archaic somehow, 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:12.120 It's like something out of Indiana Jones. It slides open 0:02:12.160 --> 0:02:14.120 as if it should have some kind of artifact of 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.240 significance inside. Yeah, and then you pull out the match, 0:02:17.280 --> 0:02:21.440 you strike it across the pad and then it ignites 0:02:21.480 --> 0:02:25.240 a brilliant spark. That sound gets the endorphins rushing through me. 0:02:25.480 --> 0:02:31.160 It does it just something exciting, calming, comforting. Uh that 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:34.280 I don't realize I'm really making myself sound like a pyromaniac. 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.919 I'm not somebody who burns down buildings. Well, I think 0:02:36.919 --> 0:02:40.320 of also the cinematic uses of of the match striking 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.680 in the darkness, flaring up and then coming back down 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.959 to a nice small Uh you know, little little doll 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.200 up of flame used a great effect in a lot 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.000 of horror movies. Yeah, I think it was. It was 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.079 it the Conjuring that had a really creepy match lighting 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.040 in the dark scene. Oh, I mean, I feel like it. 0:02:58.040 --> 0:02:59.720 It shows up in just a lot of different shows. 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:01.800 Any It's often a sense of mystery, a sense of 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:04.800 you know, of of discovery. Sometimes there's a jump scare 0:03:04.800 --> 0:03:06.280 in there, but a lot of times it is just 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:11.720 it sums up the idea of of using human technology, 0:03:12.120 --> 0:03:17.240 human fire technology to conquer the darkness, but also like 0:03:17.320 --> 0:03:21.120 really driving home how potent the darkness is. Because there's 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.800 that flare there, then it's reduced and then eventually, especially 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.120 if it's a horror film, Uh, the flame of the 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:30.320 match is going to reach the fingertips and the hero 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:32.320 or heroine will go ah, and then then it'll be 0:03:32.400 --> 0:03:34.880 dark again, right, But the light from the match in 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.080 the darkness is almost kind of like a little bubble 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.320 of air at the bottom of the ocean, you know. 0:03:39.440 --> 0:03:43.600 It's the it's this tiny, uh, little lifeline. Yeah, and 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:45.560 it's just with that one little spark, it's enough to 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.080 bring an oven then to full life, to to light 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.920 a lantern, to to bring your hot water heater back online, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:55.600 to to to save lives through a camp fire on 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.440 a on a you know, on a winter day. Yeah, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.160 fire bootstrapping, Yeah, I mean it can also again, it 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.520 can prove massively destruction if it is misused. But but 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:11.280 they're the match stick itself is is a fascinating artifact, 0:04:11.360 --> 0:04:15.000 a fascinating invention I think to focus on in discussion 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:18.479 of fire technology in general. So this is gonna be 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:22.480 a multi part exploration of fire technology and the invention 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:24.480 of the match. And I think today we're gonna be 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.680 focusing primarily on the early side of this, like what 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:31.719 came before matches and things that might have been called matches, 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:34.360 but that are not exactly like the matches we think 0:04:34.400 --> 0:04:37.360 of today. Right, We will not actually get to the 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:42.080 modern chemical match or the safety match in this episode, 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:44.679 but we're going to cover a lot of ground really 0:04:44.720 --> 0:04:49.479 just coming to terms with humanities conquest of fire. So 0:04:49.800 --> 0:04:53.000 to stay the obvious, fire is not a human invention, 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:56.520 I could I suppose you could consider a discovery though, 0:04:56.640 --> 0:04:59.640 because it does occur naturally in the world that humans 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:02.480 evolved to thrive in. But it's it's not even really 0:05:02.520 --> 0:05:06.280 a human discovery. It's more of a pre human discovery. Yeah, 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:09.400 there's evidence of non human animals in some ways interacting 0:05:09.400 --> 0:05:11.160 with fire. We've talked on the stuff to blow your 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:14.680 mind before about the evidence of like Australian birds of 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:18.320 prey or at least by by many anecdotes, sometimes using 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:22.680 wildfires in order to help catch prey. Uh. And if so, 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.520 if those stories are true, that's like in birds even 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.800 but clearly in many of the higher primates that were 0:05:28.839 --> 0:05:32.080 related to there's a kind of Uh, there's a kind 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:35.280 of like awareness of fire and a kind of regard 0:05:35.400 --> 0:05:39.359 for it that borders on interaction and use. Right, And 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:42.960 in some of the the prehistoric examples will be touching 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:46.760 on will not even be examples of Homo sapiens using fire, 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.200 but but other of our of our kin yea, our 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:55.120 hominide relatives. Yes. So we've talked about fire before on 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.320 our other podcasts, stuff to blow your mind. We had 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:00.920 a wonderful I think, pair of episodes with the title 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.200 A World Without Fire. Uh. In the in that we 0:06:04.360 --> 0:06:07.120 touched on on the three basics that you need in 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:11.320 order to have fire itself. You're gonna need heat, you're 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.040 going to need fuel, and you're going to need oxygen. 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:17.840 And so the resulting fire isn't so much a thing 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:22.839 as it is an event the rapid combustion manifested in light, 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:26.440 flame and heat. Yeah. Sometimes people like to ask, like 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.200 what is fire made of? You know, is it like 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.279 is it like a gas? Is it a solid? Uh? 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:36.159 Sometimes people assume it's some kind of plasma fire. Fire 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.039 is a mixture of things going on. So it's like 0:06:39.080 --> 0:06:43.559 a rapid release of gases that are happening at high 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.960 heat and chemical reactions going on in the air. Yeah. 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:50.279 And really, I think one thing that that is going 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:52.479 to be neat to ruminate on is we discuss the 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.599 especially these early technologies, is that it is largely through 0:06:56.920 --> 0:07:02.400 fire manipulation in a nations and inventions that we reach 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.600 these points where we can treat fire like a thing 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:08.520 rather than an event. Like it is a management of 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.360 the event that makes it into a thing or a 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.520 seeming thing that is tangible. Yeah, it makes a verb 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:18.200 into a noun. It makes makes an event into a substance. Now, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:23.080 interestingly enough, this trifecta of ingredients necessary for fire, we're 0:07:23.080 --> 0:07:25.600 not always in place on Earth, not at all. Yeah, 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:28.120 this is something we discussed in that World Without Fire episode. 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:29.560 I mean that that's kind of what the title is 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.440 getting at. Heat was, you know, certainly always a thing 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.920 here on Earth, but it wasn't until five and forty 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:40.000 million years ago, the beginning of the Paleozoic era, that 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:45.240 photosynthetic organisms terraformed the planet's atmosphere into an oxygenated balance 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.600 capable of providing that necessary second ingredient of oxygen. Right, so, 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:51.480 previously on Earth there would have been a lot of 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:55.360 like oxygen compounds, but not just like tons of free 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.640 oxygen in the atmosphere. And then there's that third ingredient 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:02.800 of fuel. And it was indeed the last ingredient really 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.880 to become available here, because what do you need to have, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:08.960 like proper fuel, what do we think of its fuel 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.880 for a fire terrestrial plant matter, and that was scarce 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.240 in you know, the early ages of the planet. The 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:20.160 earliest evidence of charred vegetation dates back to a mere 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:23.000 four hundred and forty million years ago. Yeah, so I 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.160 remember talking about this in that episode of Stuff to 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.440 Blew your mind. But it's a weird thing to think 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.240 that in addition to being the water planet, you know, 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.199 Earth is the planet with liquid water and like the burning, 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:37.240 hot or frozen other terrestrial worlds we could find, but 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:39.920 Earth is also the fire planet. I mean, I think 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:42.080 I'm correct in saying that, except for maybe in some 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.240 very weird momentary exceptions, there's nowhere else in the Solar 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:49.120 System that can support fire. The oxygen and the fuel 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:53.840 are not present. So eventually humans and human ancestors came along, 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.840 and they would have definitely by that point they would 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:02.040 have encountered periodic examples of fire, of wild fire um 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.959 and this would be the result of generally lightning strikes 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:08.160 or I think that the prime candidate. But also you 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.040 would have seen fire occasionally from things like volcanic activity, 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.720 falling rocks that managed to spark correctly to create a spark, 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:17.920 much like flint and steel as we'll we'll get into 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.600 flint and steel in a bed here um and uh. 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.280 And then also there's the spontaneous combustion of organic materials. 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.480 But lightning would have been the big one. Now, certainly 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.160 at this point many many animals had already learned to 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:35.200 game fire and overcome it. Organtic entities cannot endure fire, really, 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:37.800 but the many have involved to survive it and even 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.559 depend on wildfire cycles. We see this in plants especially, 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.760 but early Homo species members of the Homo genus, which 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.800 Homo sapiens are are a member of. UH, they would 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.320 have found this sparkling brilliance uh, you know, the result 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:56.560 of a lightning strike on some dry wood for example, 0:09:56.600 --> 0:10:01.640 a resulting moving spread of wildfire or something. Uh. They 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:04.920 would have realized that it offered a number of vital properties, 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.400 most obviously heat and light, but over time it would 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:13.800 prove valuable for a number of secondary purposes as well, 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:21.079 such as protection, tool tempering, plant selection, cooking, vegetation clearing, hunting, pottery, 0:10:21.200 --> 0:10:24.880 food preservation, and pest control. But at a very basic level. 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:28.720 It brought light into the darkness and heat into the cold. 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:33.960 It allowed these wandering diurnal omnivores to thrive and otherwise 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:37.960 limiting times and places. For example, it enabled early humans 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:41.360 and Neanderthals to inhabit cold weather regions and endure the 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:43.960 ice age. I mean, when you think about it, fire 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:47.960 is absolutely necessary for human civilization. It's the thing that 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:53.040 makes so many other layers of technology possible. You couldn't 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.720 have it without fire. Yeah, you certainly couldn't have metal working, 0:10:57.240 --> 0:11:00.280 you know, culinary advancements or any of this stuff. It 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:06.120 is really hard to overstate the importance of of our ancestors, 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:10.480 uh mastery of fire. On the technological ladder, it is 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.640 uh what probably like wrung number two maybe wrung number 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.720 one is tool uh manufacturing to tool construction. Well, yeah, 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:19.840 I mean, so you can you can make stone tools 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.320 without fire. You know, you can chip stone tools and 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.520 you can like wrap them together with vines and things 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:27.880 like that. But what are the ways that we primarily 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:31.880 characterize technology stages after that? I mean the big ones 0:11:31.920 --> 0:11:34.640 are like what types of metal working humans are capable of? 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:38.079 All totally dependent on fire? All you know, basically all 0:11:38.160 --> 0:11:41.520 chemistry is dependent on fire. Yeah, I mean I always 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.360 come back again to the example of the hot water 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:48.160 heater in my house. Like my house, Uh, a lot 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.960 of what goes on there depends on this tiny fire 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.240 that is maintained by a machine, the pilot light in there. 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:56.240 You know, It's like it's like a little a little 0:11:56.280 --> 0:11:58.920 fire demon that lives in my house. Always makes me 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:02.920 think of the mus Hockey films House Moving Castle with 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.280 the fire demon that lives in the hearth, which is 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.440 ultimately uh yeah, this is a good one to come 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:10.440 back to in this episode because that sums up a 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:14.160 lot about the nature of fire, the precious nature of fire. 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:18.880 So we know that fire occurs naturally, but this must 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.120 make you wonder, Okay, so there must there was a 0:12:21.160 --> 0:12:25.880 period that was a gap between humans just encountering natural 0:12:26.040 --> 0:12:29.840 fires and reacting to them versus humans making their own 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:33.440 fire out of nothing. Uh So, like, what do we 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.520 have in between? Well, the first step is just possession 0:12:36.559 --> 0:12:40.640 of the fire, not having the ability to recreate it, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.880 but figuring out how to keep it once it isn't 0:12:43.880 --> 0:12:46.440 been encountered in the wild, you know, bringing back this 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.400 precious thing and cultivating it so how far back does 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.520 this go in our history? Well, according to the seventy 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.120 Great Inventions of the Ancient World by Brian in Fagin 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.160 uh And in this case the entry is also also 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:04.120 features work by the contributor Stephen uh Mythin Uh. They 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.080 point out that finding evidence of prehistoric camp fires is 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:12.040 difficult because they in many cases leave no trace that 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:15.360 we can find today, and we have to avoid mistaking 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:19.680 naturally occurring fires for fires created or maintained by humans. 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.360 Now one and an author here that we're gonna come 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:27.440 back to again and again is Jamie Whisniac, who wrote 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:31.320 an excellent paper Matches the Manufacturer Fire in two thousand 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:34.920 five for the Indian Journal of Chemical Technology. And in 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.880 that Whisneyac mentions that archaeological evidence suggests that the controlled 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.720 use of fire may date back five hundred thousand years 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:49.040 and this evidence would would be from Beaches Pit in Norfolk, England. 0:13:49.480 --> 0:13:52.280 Uh And the the evidence here, according to Fagan and Mythan, 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:54.800 is based on the fact that it shows, in addition 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.280 to other signs of habitation, areas of heavily burnt soil, 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.880 too intense and local lies to be natural. Okay, so 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:05.480 you imagine like fires occur in nature. Sometimes there's lightning 0:14:05.520 --> 0:14:08.040 and a forest catches fire, but the fire kind of 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:11.200 like sweeps through and moves on once most of the 0:14:11.200 --> 0:14:14.280 fuel is used up. In a naturally occurring setting, you 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.960 wouldn't expect to have a fire burning in exactly the 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.720 same one spot for a long period of time, right, Yes, 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:24.080 something unnatural is happening here. If if there seems to 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.160 be a fire here, and let's say every day for 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.520 a week, that's that's suspect every day for a month, 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.440 or just even periodically over the course of years. And 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.200 yet Fagan and Mythan point to another older example, and 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.320 I believe as of this recording, it is still the 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:46.480 oldest example that is that is presented form a unnatural 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.160 fire on this planet, and that is a one point 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:53.320 six million year old site in Kenya. This was discovered 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.760 in two thousand five, which is the same year as 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.240 whisney next paper. But I'm guessing that's the reason that 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:01.400 he does not mentioned that in his work. I mean, 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:04.120 it's probably, you know, given the overlap and or gap 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:08.680 there between those publications, he may have missed that. But this, 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.240 this finding is one point six million old year old 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:14.560 site in Kenya, it's based on experimental studies that show 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.280 that a regularly maintained camp fire will do two things. 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.400 It will oxidize soil to depths of up to six 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:25.080 inches or fifteen centimeters, and the magnetic properties of the 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:27.760 underlying soil may be altered, resulting in a in a 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:32.400 different magnetic property orientation compared to sites of natural fire 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.440 or sites where there is no burning at all and 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.080 uh And to be specific, this is referred to as 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:44.480 the f x J J twenty site in kuby Fa, Kenya. Okay. 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.360 So if this is correct, it looks like up to 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:50.840 one point six million years ago, some kind of human 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:55.520 ancestor had captured fire from some source and had made 0:15:55.560 --> 0:15:58.040 a fire pit that they were able to maintain for 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.560 long periods of time, right, I think specifically it's thought 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.720 that this would have been astro Lepithecus robust us and 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.680 or Homo erectus. But again, just because you have it 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.920 doesn't mean you can of course fully utilize it, and 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:13.200 it definitely doesn't mean that you can create it yourself. 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:17.760 Just in terms of hosting the fire. Distinctive hearths within 0:16:17.920 --> 0:16:21.400 caves don't show up till apparently sixty thousand years ago, 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.640 and the use of fire to manage landscape pops up 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:29.040 roughly nine thousand in Europe. But of course, once you 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.240 have a fire, what are people going to do with it? 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:33.320 They're going to tinker with it, They're going to poke 0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:37.120 it with sticks. We still can't resist the temptation to 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:39.640 to poke around in a fire and experiment with its 0:16:39.640 --> 0:16:43.160 properties and its power and its heat. Of course, and uh, 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.040 there's actually a wonderful line. This is from the Greek 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:49.320 writer Ascalis, who described fire as quote a teacher in 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:54.040 every skill, and a means too mighty ends. And ultimately 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.400 this is why the gift or theft of fire from 0:16:56.400 --> 0:17:00.160 the gods factors into various myth cycles, right from that 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:02.760 of Prometheus in the Greek tradition to the mythic fire 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:07.160 driller in Chinese mythology. I was also reading of one. 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:11.679 This is a Lakota myth in which coyote steals the 0:17:11.760 --> 0:17:15.200 fire from a trio of witches and to escape them. Uh, 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:18.000 the fire has passed from animal to animal as the 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:22.280 witches chase after them, um, until an old frog is 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.160 cornered by the witches and spits the burning brand into 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:29.080 a stump and the stump swallows it. Uh, And of 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.960 course one can't help. But think of you know, the 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:35.399 places you might keep a fire, you might grow a 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.880 fire and new such as an old stump. Well, yeah, 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.119 I mean I think that's a tradition for keeping a 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:44.679 fire is putting it inside a hollowed out tree. Yeah. That, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:48.000 by the way, That details from Mark Warren on medicine 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:51.360 bow a dot net. But but certainly you find other 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:56.160 tales of of fire origins against thefts from the gods, 0:17:56.240 --> 0:17:59.040 gifts of the gods and the Titans, and various myth 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:01.840 cycles around the world. Even in the ancient world. It's 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.600 clearly recognized as something that is transformative of the human 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.359 kind's roll on the earth. It's like that, you know, 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:10.600 whether it's a gift from the gods or something stolen 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.600 from the gods, it's a thing that marks a transition 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:17.560 point for what humans are and what they're capable of. Yeah, 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:20.480 fire change the world. But it is one thing to again, 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.760 to wield captured fire, another thing entirely to generate it yourself. 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.359 And his Whisney Act points out quote the step from 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.600 the control of fire to its manufacture required hundreds of 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:35.879 thousands of years and that is that is awe inspiring 0:18:35.920 --> 0:18:38.199 to think about that there's this this long period of 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.920 time in which fire remains this thing that may be captured, 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:46.960 then may be cultivated, but the means of producing it 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.760 are are not known to the individuals who use it 0:18:51.320 --> 0:18:54.440 think about I don't know. I mean, it's hard not 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:58.600 to start imagining the kinds of mythology that would give 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.280 rise to, you know, the idea that there is like 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:05.080 almost this living thing, this substance kept among you that 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:08.920 must always be fed or else your your livelihood is gone. 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.120 Right And again, thinking back on the fact that we're 0:19:12.160 --> 0:19:16.280 talking about ancient peoples that that typically did not stay 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.639 in one spot for extended periods of time. They would 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.520 move around, and therefore you had to, you know, in 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.320 the words of Corman McCarthy, keep carrying the fire. You 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:29.919 would literally have to bring some active portion of the 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:33.399 fire with you. Uh So, perhaps you have like a 0:19:33.440 --> 0:19:37.000 main camp fire, a main camp that that you're that's 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:39.480 your base fire, but you still need to bring some 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:41.760 of it with you. If you're hoping to build another 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.159 camp over here, or if you're packing up entirely, you 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:46.800 have to bring some glowing ember of that with you 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.560 and keep it vital until you can feed a new fire, 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.480 otherwise it will go out. And then when and where 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:55.800 will you acquire a new one? You'll have to get 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.840 one from other beings that are cultivating fire, or just 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.560 you know, wait in how you can find a wildfire 0:20:01.640 --> 0:20:04.719 to steal from. If you wait until you find a wildfire, 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.679 I mean, you might be waiting past the end of 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:09.960 your life, right And then also I mean to to 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.880 you know, to stay the obvious too, like wildfires are 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.640 inherently dangerous, so you know that is that's very much 0:20:16.640 --> 0:20:19.840 like stealing the meat from the lion. There. All right, 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:21.480 we should take a break, but when we come back 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.760 we will talk more about technology for carrying the fire. 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.240 All right, we're back. So we've been talking about this 0:20:33.359 --> 0:20:39.160 long period of human prehistory where humans clearly had control 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.000 of fire in some way, but we did not have 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.600 the means to manufacture fire from nothing. So if a 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.840 fire goes out, you are out of luck. We do 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.080 not have the technology to make a new fire from 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.800 from no previously existing fire. So you might have something 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.520 burning that you've managed to acquire at some point, your 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.639 ancestors managed to wire at some point from a forest 0:21:01.720 --> 0:21:05.600 fire or a lightning strike or whatever. And and now 0:21:05.640 --> 0:21:08.400 you've just got to keep this fire fed because it's 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:11.560 it's your livelihood, it's how you survive. But let's say 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.240 you needed to move from one place to another, how 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:16.160 do you do that? Like, how do you make sure 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:18.920 that you can always keep the fire burning when you're 0:21:18.960 --> 0:21:21.159 on the go? Yeah, and and again we come back 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.480 to the idea that management of fire is is a 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:27.959 means of turning an event into something that is at 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:32.520 least mostly tangible that then can be transported. So, yeah, 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:35.000 I was looking around on this looking for, you know, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.520 some some ideas about how this was carried out, and 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:41.280 I ran across some writings by Walter Hoe, who was 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:44.919 a Smithsonian ethnologist of the early twentieth century, writing in 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.320 Fire as an Agent in Human Culture, Issue one thirty nine, 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:51.240 and he explored this very topic and provided some potential 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:56.480 answers based on um known examples of fire preservation from 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.960 generally from existing or very recent societies. So these examples 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:04.240 would have been among societies that did have the means 0:22:04.320 --> 0:22:07.320 to manufacture fire again if they lost it. But even 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:10.440 if you have those means, sometimes keeping a fire going 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.280 can be advantageous, right, can be easier than trying to 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.760 laboriously strike a new fire maybe when conditions are bad, right, Yeah, 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.720 and uh And indeed, he points out that keeping a 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:22.919 fire going like this and the necessity of keeping a 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.000 fire going was probably the beginning of the quote enormous 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:30.520 fuel industries of the day. Uh so so yeah, you 0:22:30.720 --> 0:22:33.800 just imagining that these people just having to continually feed it. 0:22:34.000 --> 0:22:36.879 Just it's it's this thing that will never it's hunger 0:22:36.920 --> 0:22:39.880 will never stop. If it's hunger. Uh, It's hunger dies 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.760 when it dies. And when it dies, especially if you're 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.959 in a northern climate or in the middle of winter. Uh, 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:48.240 that may be the death of your people as well. 0:22:49.119 --> 0:22:51.600 So he the author looked to several examples of fire 0:22:51.640 --> 0:22:54.920 preservation in more recent societies, and these are a few 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:57.399 that I think shed some interesting light. One he points 0:22:57.440 --> 0:23:01.120 to the Andaman Islands. This is in the Bay of Bengal, 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:04.280 where they hollow out a tree trunk and set it 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:08.879 on fire and the fire remains under accumulated ashes. He 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:12.000 also says writes that the Cherokee would bury fire in 0:23:12.040 --> 0:23:14.960 the ground in a fire cash and this was also 0:23:14.960 --> 0:23:18.240 practiced by other groups of native people's in the America's 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:21.680 as well. And this is definitely an example though where um, 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:26.920 they certainly had fire creation technology, they could make fire themselves. 0:23:27.320 --> 0:23:31.359 But uh, this is likely more about preventing the necessity 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:34.600 of a drawn out a flint and pyrites method of 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:37.720 striking a spark getting the spark going. Uh, you know, 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:40.800 and it reveals possible ways of carrying the fire in 0:23:40.840 --> 0:23:44.000 the days before such techniques as well. Okay, but those 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:47.280 would have been mainly about preserving fire in place. What 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:50.639 about transporting fire from one place to another? Yeah, and 0:23:50.640 --> 0:23:53.520 this is a this is trickier than, uh than I 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:55.919 think some of this might think, because you basically have 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:58.000 to ensure that it is it is going, it is 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.359 still burning. They're still burning there the heat uh, and 0:24:01.520 --> 0:24:04.200 or the flame is maintained, but you have to ensure 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:08.600 that it's burning in a slow combustion fuel because again, 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:11.480 it is hungry. You can almost need the fire to 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:14.520 be in a state of kind of suspended animation but 0:24:14.640 --> 0:24:17.080 not dead. So some of the ones that he points 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:20.919 to hear the Montabut Islands method, in which a soft 0:24:21.000 --> 0:24:23.600 husk material from a ripe coconut is placed in a 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:27.040 coconut shell with a red hot ember and here he 0:24:27.080 --> 0:24:29.600 writes it will smolder for three to four days and 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:33.000 can be brought on voyages across the water for fires 0:24:33.280 --> 0:24:37.240 in any place that they land. Uh the Osagy I 0:24:37.320 --> 0:24:40.280 was just trying to imagine trying to take fire with 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:43.720 you on a wooden boat. Yeah. He also points to 0:24:43.840 --> 0:24:46.320 the Osagy tribes people of North America, who used a 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:50.120 fungus tinder tinder for anyone is in tinder box, this 0:24:50.200 --> 0:24:53.080 is of course the uh you know the flammable material 0:24:53.320 --> 0:24:55.720 you know, like a fine material. Uh that you know 0:24:55.760 --> 0:24:58.480 that you can then catch fire with the spark that 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:00.520 will come back again. And something one talked about in 0:25:00.520 --> 0:25:04.280 a minute. Oh yes, absolutely, now the uh this tinder 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:06.840 would be from inside of a hollow tree, placed between 0:25:06.880 --> 0:25:10.680 two muscle shells and bound with cords. Again, it'll last 0:25:10.680 --> 0:25:13.600 several days like this. And he also pointed to contemporary 0:25:13.680 --> 0:25:18.679 fisherman of Cape Finistere off the coast of Spain, who 0:25:18.680 --> 0:25:20.920 would use a fire horn. This would be like a 0:25:20.920 --> 0:25:24.760 cow horn in which decayed would or fungus is placed 0:25:24.880 --> 0:25:28.119 for tinder and one end of the horn is stoppard. 0:25:28.480 --> 0:25:30.280 And so a fisherman could you know you could have 0:25:30.320 --> 0:25:33.639 the ember in there, and the fisherman could then blow 0:25:33.720 --> 0:25:36.280 on one end to produce fire, to light a smoke, 0:25:36.359 --> 0:25:39.119 et cetera. Now, on a fictional note, some of you 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:41.359 may be fans of the book The Clan of a 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:45.359 Cave Bear by Gene m Owl. Again, it's a fictional novel, 0:25:45.359 --> 0:25:48.720 but it's set in prehistoric times. I was talking to 0:25:48.760 --> 0:25:51.440 my wife a little bit about this, and she remembered 0:25:51.480 --> 0:25:54.919 there being passages dealing with the preservation of fire and 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:57.800 bringing fire from one place to another, And so I 0:25:57.840 --> 0:26:00.000 looked it up and and in it the author described 0:26:00.040 --> 0:26:03.159 to Neanderthals using uh uh these kind of techniques for 0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:05.800 this reason, quote, it was easier to take a coal 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:08.440 from one camp fire and keep it alive to start 0:26:08.440 --> 0:26:10.320 the next one than to try to start a new 0:26:10.359 --> 0:26:14.199 fire each evening with possibly inadequate materials. And then on 0:26:14.280 --> 0:26:18.080 top of this, the author presents some some supernatural ideas 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:21.040 that the tribe engages in the idea that this fire 0:26:21.560 --> 0:26:24.439 then is connected to the home fire from which the 0:26:24.480 --> 0:26:27.080 coal was taken, and that care of the coal in 0:26:27.160 --> 0:26:30.080 transit is trusted to a senior member of the tribe 0:26:30.320 --> 0:26:32.520 for its its death would be a dire omen and 0:26:32.560 --> 0:26:35.399 a sign that the gods had abandoned them. The fact 0:26:35.400 --> 0:26:37.960 that the coal comes from a previous fire, it allows 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:41.000 you to create kind of a genealogy of fires. Yeah. 0:26:41.440 --> 0:26:44.080 So again this is a this is an older fictional 0:26:44.560 --> 0:26:48.000 presentation of how Neanderthals might or might not have engaged 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:50.000 with fire. But it's still I think it's it's still 0:26:50.000 --> 0:26:52.800 pretty interesting. Okay, but we know that at some point 0:26:52.960 --> 0:26:55.560 humans come out of this period where you're just at 0:26:55.560 --> 0:26:59.399 the mercy of maintaining fires found in nature. At some 0:26:59.440 --> 0:27:02.639 point are historic ancestors, I guess in the Stone Age, 0:27:02.680 --> 0:27:07.119 at some point came up with means of creating fires 0:27:07.160 --> 0:27:10.160 that didn't previously exist, right, And one of the big 0:27:10.160 --> 0:27:13.040 ways of doing it was, of course friction. I already 0:27:13.080 --> 0:27:15.600 mentioned the Chinese myth of the fire driller, and this 0:27:15.720 --> 0:27:19.680 is a reference to the bow fire drill, which is 0:27:19.720 --> 0:27:22.440 a means of creating friction. I mean, you could ultimately 0:27:22.480 --> 0:27:25.639 do the get some version of this by just taking 0:27:26.000 --> 0:27:29.159 like a stick, rubbing, rubbing it between your palms and 0:27:29.240 --> 0:27:31.600 having the end of the stick rub into you know, 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:34.160 another piece of wood, and then you would be able 0:27:34.200 --> 0:27:37.320 to produce heat via friction. Right. Yeah, So the idea 0:27:37.400 --> 0:27:40.879 there is that. Yeah, the friction generated, their heats up 0:27:40.920 --> 0:27:43.919 the substances. If he gets it up to the ignition 0:27:43.960 --> 0:27:46.880 point and there's enough access to oxygen around it, then 0:27:46.920 --> 0:27:49.920 it will catch fire. But obviously, I mean, if you've 0:27:49.960 --> 0:27:52.600 ever tried to do this, this is not easy, right, 0:27:52.640 --> 0:27:56.520 This is an arduous, difficult task. Yes, it's sometimes it 0:27:56.600 --> 0:27:59.920 looks easy in films, but I don't know that's certainly 0:28:00.000 --> 0:28:01.920 in some films that really I think kind of drive 0:28:02.000 --> 0:28:07.280 home the tedious nature of using a fire drill to 0:28:07.320 --> 0:28:10.840 start a blaze. Um, because you're gonna get that You're 0:28:10.880 --> 0:28:13.119 you're creating the heat via the friction, and then you 0:28:13.160 --> 0:28:15.400 need to transfer that heat into some tinder and then 0:28:15.560 --> 0:28:18.600 build from there. Right. Because another thing is, if you've 0:28:18.600 --> 0:28:21.960 ever tried to like light a large piece of wood 0:28:22.040 --> 0:28:25.000 on fire, it doesn't easily catch fire. It's much easier 0:28:25.040 --> 0:28:28.560 to uh start a fire in what we mentioned earlier, tender, 0:28:28.680 --> 0:28:32.920 little tiny pieces of flammable material, which, for multiple material 0:28:33.000 --> 0:28:36.040 reasons catch fire easier. One just being that they're you know, 0:28:36.080 --> 0:28:40.080 by being smaller, they're more surrounded by oxygen and all that. Yeah, 0:28:40.200 --> 0:28:44.040 So the technology the fire drill pops up in various places. 0:28:44.040 --> 0:28:46.960 For instance, you'll find it in ancient Egypt for sure. Uh, 0:28:47.200 --> 0:28:50.320 it's one of the belongings found among au in the 0:28:50.320 --> 0:28:52.920 tomb of Tuton Common. This would have been the fourteenth 0:28:53.000 --> 0:28:57.360 century b C. But it apparently goes back at least 0:28:57.400 --> 0:29:02.840 before the Indus Valley civilization to the Marigar civilization that 0:29:02.880 --> 0:29:06.400 existed between the fourth and fifth millennium BC. You're talking 0:29:06.400 --> 0:29:10.760 about the bow drill there. So the invention of friction 0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:13.800 based fire creation is ultimately lost to history, but it's 0:29:13.800 --> 0:29:18.520 often speculated that in the case of the bow example, 0:29:18.560 --> 0:29:21.120 this is something that would have come up via would work, 0:29:21.800 --> 0:29:27.680 especially creating like a primitive drill to aided by a bow. Perhaps, 0:29:27.680 --> 0:29:31.200 like people would have gradually realized, oh, the same sort 0:29:31.240 --> 0:29:34.840 of heat that we desire from a fire, I'm producing 0:29:35.000 --> 0:29:38.480 heat when the sticks rubbed together. Um, perhaps should we 0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:41.360 should explore that more? And then you know, experimentation. After 0:29:41.360 --> 0:29:44.360 an experimentation, you can finally get to some sort of 0:29:44.600 --> 0:29:47.320 fire drill method that works. And then there is a 0:29:47.360 --> 0:29:51.520 there's another method. There is a percussion method of generating 0:29:51.520 --> 0:29:54.560 a spark and this nowadays we think of this as 0:29:54.600 --> 0:29:57.160 flint and steel. In older days, this would have been 0:29:57.360 --> 0:30:00.400 pyrite and flint, which would have done this same thing. 0:30:00.560 --> 0:30:02.560 So how exactly does this work? All? Right? So, the 0:30:03.040 --> 0:30:06.840 basic idea is that rather than pure friction, the hard 0:30:07.040 --> 0:30:10.600 flint edge shaves off a particle of the steel or 0:30:10.680 --> 0:30:15.440 pyrite that exposes iron, which reacts with oxygen from the atmosphere. 0:30:15.880 --> 0:30:18.840 So and flint and pyrite is just a slower version 0:30:18.840 --> 0:30:21.400 of what happens with flint and steel. But what it 0:30:21.440 --> 0:30:23.760 will end up looking like is striking two pieces of 0:30:24.520 --> 0:30:28.720 rock together and creating a little spark um and you 0:30:28.760 --> 0:30:32.120 would be trying to shoot that spark into some tinder 0:30:32.200 --> 0:30:35.320 that you had gathered. Yes, yeah again once you all 0:30:35.360 --> 0:30:38.520 you're creating is like the initial the initial spark, and 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:40.680 you need tinder then to get that going, turn that 0:30:40.720 --> 0:30:43.720 into a proper flame, and then build from there a fire, 0:30:44.080 --> 0:30:47.360 A true fire is truly built piece of fuel by 0:30:47.360 --> 0:30:51.080 piece of fuel, gradually from the small to the large. Yeah, 0:30:51.160 --> 0:30:53.000 the the you have the tinder, and then you have 0:30:53.040 --> 0:30:56.600 the kindling, and then finally you have the fuel the firewood. Now, 0:30:56.760 --> 0:30:59.520 the tinder box, for instance, is a long, very used 0:30:59.560 --> 0:31:03.160 variation of this. It consisted of flint, fire, steel, and tinder, 0:31:03.480 --> 0:31:05.840 which against slow burning fuel to catch the spark and 0:31:05.840 --> 0:31:08.720 produce a flame that could then be transferred somewhere else. 0:31:09.640 --> 0:31:11.920 But in either case you produce the heat or the 0:31:11.960 --> 0:31:14.360 spark and then you use that to get dry leaves 0:31:14.400 --> 0:31:17.000 or fun guy going, and this could serve as the 0:31:17.000 --> 0:31:20.920 beginnings of a proper fire. So this ties into something 0:31:20.960 --> 0:31:22.840 that we've talked about on the show before. One of 0:31:22.840 --> 0:31:27.720 my favorite figures from prehistory, Otsy the Iceman so Otsy, 0:31:27.880 --> 0:31:31.640 if you're not familiar, is a natural mummy from Neolithic Europe, 0:31:31.760 --> 0:31:35.680 roughly from the late fourth millennium b C, who was 0:31:35.720 --> 0:31:39.200 found preserved and partially frozen in a glacier in the 0:31:39.240 --> 0:31:43.920 Italian Alps in the year nine uh. And Otsy is 0:31:44.000 --> 0:31:48.120 such an absolutely fascinating historical find because the more we 0:31:48.240 --> 0:31:52.440 learn about him, the more thrilling mysteries accumulate, like how 0:31:52.480 --> 0:31:55.960 did this Stone age man end up so high up 0:31:55.960 --> 0:31:58.560 in the mountains where, I mean, he's way way up 0:31:58.600 --> 0:32:01.000 there where there's like not much of a reason to 0:32:01.200 --> 0:32:04.480 be up that high, What was he doing there? How 0:32:04.480 --> 0:32:07.280 did he die? And in answer to the last question, 0:32:07.520 --> 0:32:11.120 more recent analyzes of his body, including cat scans, have 0:32:11.280 --> 0:32:15.280 shown injuries indicating he was very likely killed by homicide, 0:32:15.320 --> 0:32:18.000 with like an arrowhead lodged in his shoulder and some 0:32:18.120 --> 0:32:21.400 broken bones, I think. And then when you start examining 0:32:21.440 --> 0:32:24.600 his possessions, things get even more interesting, Like he has 0:32:24.640 --> 0:32:28.400 a rare and special kind of ax that indicates that 0:32:28.440 --> 0:32:31.280 he may have been some kind of you know, leader figure, 0:32:31.640 --> 0:32:34.719 high status individual to have a metal ax like he did. 0:32:34.840 --> 0:32:37.080 I think it was a copper axe. But also at 0:32:37.080 --> 0:32:39.080 the same time, he has in his possession some kind 0:32:39.120 --> 0:32:45.000 of half finished, half constructed, makeshift or damaged weapons and tools, 0:32:45.600 --> 0:32:47.840 And the mind just starts racing to fill in the 0:32:47.880 --> 0:32:51.360 possible scenarios that drove this guy up onto the glacier 0:32:51.800 --> 0:32:55.560 in what appears to be hasty preparation for battle maybe 0:32:55.840 --> 0:32:58.800 and whatever ultimately killed him. I mean, we just don't know. 0:32:58.920 --> 0:33:00.800 But I think in the last couple of years there 0:33:00.800 --> 0:33:03.960 was somebody who made a prehistoric action movie imagining the 0:33:04.040 --> 0:33:06.200 last days of Otsy. I haven't seen it yet, but 0:33:06.960 --> 0:33:10.560 I was interested in the idea. But anyway, whatever happened 0:33:10.880 --> 0:33:13.479 to him, he came up in a previous episode of 0:33:13.480 --> 0:33:16.840 Invention because it was the episode on chewing Gum, and 0:33:17.120 --> 0:33:20.240 we discovered that Oatsy had in his possession a lump 0:33:20.240 --> 0:33:23.080 of birch bark tar, and it's been hypothesized that he 0:33:23.160 --> 0:33:25.800 might have used this tar as a kind of primitive 0:33:25.880 --> 0:33:30.360 chewing gum. But anyway, so we mentioned Otsy's tools and belongings, 0:33:30.720 --> 0:33:33.600 and one of the other things found on the iceman's 0:33:33.680 --> 0:33:37.400 belt was a Neolithic fire making kid and it's very 0:33:37.480 --> 0:33:40.320 much along the lines we've just been discussing. So his 0:33:40.440 --> 0:33:44.840 kit included a bar shaped flint, probably used as a strikealite, 0:33:45.400 --> 0:33:48.280 as well as particles of pyrite. I think from what 0:33:48.360 --> 0:33:50.880 I've read, he did not actually have a large piece 0:33:50.880 --> 0:33:53.840 of pyrite with him, but in this leather pouch where 0:33:53.840 --> 0:33:56.560 he had his flint there were particles of pyrite, indicating 0:33:56.560 --> 0:33:59.400 he maybe at some point had pyrite in there for 0:33:59.560 --> 0:34:03.400 striking off the sparks. He also had a small amount 0:34:03.440 --> 0:34:07.200 with him of a kind of fluffy fungus which was 0:34:07.240 --> 0:34:11.360 probably used as tinder according to the author's Dick Stapard 0:34:11.400 --> 0:34:14.080 and like a Yo Johansson in their paper Flint and 0:34:14.120 --> 0:34:17.799 Pyrite Making Fire in the Stone Age and the Journal Antiquity, 0:34:17.880 --> 0:34:22.439 this fungus was probably Foamy's fomentarius, which is also known 0:34:22.480 --> 0:34:26.279 as tinder fungus. And it's this fungus that produces a 0:34:26.280 --> 0:34:29.440 fruiting body which grows in a shape somewhat like a 0:34:29.440 --> 0:34:32.359 horse's hoof off the side of a tree trunk. And 0:34:32.440 --> 0:34:35.920 it has widely been used as soft organic material to 0:34:36.640 --> 0:34:40.520 service tinder or kindling for a fire. But that's not 0:34:40.640 --> 0:34:44.239 all because, as we discussed already, even if you had 0:34:44.280 --> 0:34:47.759 the means to strike a friction fire, the task would 0:34:47.800 --> 0:34:50.439 often take a lot of time or be difficult under 0:34:50.520 --> 0:34:54.440 unfavorable environmental conditions, say if it was cold and wet outside, 0:34:54.520 --> 0:34:57.520 or maybe if you were on a glacier. Uh So, 0:34:57.640 --> 0:35:01.279 Oatsy had another option to carry the fire. Uh to 0:35:01.360 --> 0:35:04.720 quote from an enumeration of Otzi's belongings from the South 0:35:04.760 --> 0:35:07.960 Tirol Museum of Archaeology, which is where that's the museum 0:35:08.000 --> 0:35:11.680 where Otsi is now kept, oats had quote to birch 0:35:11.800 --> 0:35:16.880 bark containers cylindrical pots measuring fifteen to eighteen centimeters in 0:35:16.920 --> 0:35:21.200 diameter and approximately twenty centimeters high. They were found near 0:35:21.239 --> 0:35:24.040 the mummy. They were made from a single piece of 0:35:24.120 --> 0:35:28.400 bark and stitched together with lime tree bast The round 0:35:28.480 --> 0:35:31.080 piece of birch bark, which served as the base, was 0:35:31.120 --> 0:35:34.560 also stitched on. The interior of one of the vessels 0:35:34.640 --> 0:35:38.960 was blackened and contained freshly picked Norway maple leaves and 0:35:39.080 --> 0:35:44.080 charcoal fragments. It is assumed that Otsy wrapped charcoal embers 0:35:44.200 --> 0:35:47.960 in the leaves and carried them in the birch bark container. 0:35:48.360 --> 0:35:50.880 In this way, the embers could be kept for several 0:35:50.920 --> 0:35:54.799 hours and fanned into fire in a few seconds. So 0:35:54.840 --> 0:35:57.080 he had a fire making hack obviously, you know, he 0:35:57.160 --> 0:36:00.400 had the flint and at some point had pyrite. Uh, 0:36:00.440 --> 0:36:02.719 So he could strike a fire if he needed to. 0:36:03.120 --> 0:36:06.479 But that's hard work. It's not always gonna is gonna 0:36:06.520 --> 0:36:08.719 be difficult to do, especially it's gonna be difficult to 0:36:08.719 --> 0:36:11.960 do quickly. Uh. And you you might imagine, given whatever 0:36:12.040 --> 0:36:14.960 kind of injuries and weapons situation was going on, he 0:36:15.000 --> 0:36:17.880 might have been in a in a hurry, maybe chasing 0:36:17.920 --> 0:36:20.759 people or being chased by people, or or who knows what. 0:36:21.080 --> 0:36:23.120 So he's got a number with him, and that's if 0:36:23.160 --> 0:36:25.560 he needs to start a fire immediately, he can just 0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:28.400 pull that out and have a fire in seconds. I 0:36:28.440 --> 0:36:30.759 hope all the dungeon masters out there listening to this, 0:36:30.840 --> 0:36:34.040 and we'll really put their players through the ring. Or 0:36:34.120 --> 0:36:36.040 the next time they go to make camp and they 0:36:36.040 --> 0:36:38.080 need a fire, don't just let him say and we 0:36:38.160 --> 0:36:41.439 make a fire and make them work for it. Ask 0:36:41.480 --> 0:36:43.279 them what what are they going to use to make 0:36:43.320 --> 0:36:45.360 the fire, what kind of fuel are they going to gather, 0:36:46.040 --> 0:36:47.759 et cetera. And then by the end of it, maybe 0:36:47.760 --> 0:36:52.839 you'll you'll enforce some some means of transporting embers from 0:36:53.040 --> 0:36:55.319 today's camp to the next if they really want that 0:36:55.400 --> 0:36:57.840 long rest. How much better is it in D and 0:36:57.880 --> 0:37:00.200 D to have a fire than a camp without a fire? 0:37:00.280 --> 0:37:02.840 Do you like special benefits? I mean, I guess it. 0:37:02.960 --> 0:37:05.440 It's gonna depend It's gonna depend on a number of factors. 0:37:06.360 --> 0:37:08.200 But also I think a lot of times it's gonna 0:37:08.239 --> 0:37:10.920 depend on what the tendon masters plotting. You know, like 0:37:11.120 --> 0:37:14.279 if you want to put them through environmental health, then yeah, 0:37:14.320 --> 0:37:15.839 I had to say that it's super cold and you've 0:37:15.840 --> 0:37:18.240 got to get that fire going and to stay warm, 0:37:18.320 --> 0:37:19.759 and then you can use it as an excuse to 0:37:19.800 --> 0:37:23.239 attract villains to the camp. I mean, yeah, there's a 0:37:24.040 --> 0:37:26.680 there's so much to do, right because the camp fire 0:37:27.000 --> 0:37:30.720 is so pivotal to the human experience into human history 0:37:30.800 --> 0:37:33.680 and to our story making. Uh, there's so many things 0:37:33.680 --> 0:37:35.200 you can do it. I mean, i've I've I've heard 0:37:35.239 --> 0:37:38.200 it put forward that you know, just about any any 0:37:38.239 --> 0:37:41.800 tale that we tell is a story about camp fires, 0:37:42.600 --> 0:37:46.319 at least in a vague sense. So anyway, from all 0:37:46.360 --> 0:37:49.240 of this, you can tell why it's advantageous to reserve 0:37:49.480 --> 0:37:51.799 that precious hot coal rather than to go through all 0:37:52.000 --> 0:37:53.759 these steps every time you need to make a camp. 0:37:54.200 --> 0:37:56.400 But of course, another way to transfer fire from the 0:37:56.440 --> 0:37:59.560 home fire to other places touches on that again, that 0:37:59.680 --> 0:38:02.880 long time human pastime of just poking sticks around in 0:38:02.920 --> 0:38:06.359 a fire, Because truly, is there anything better? We all 0:38:06.400 --> 0:38:07.759 want to do it, we all need to do it. 0:38:07.840 --> 0:38:10.040 We find a good stick and we start prodding the 0:38:10.080 --> 0:38:14.440 hot embers until we've contracted the miracle flame onto the stick, 0:38:14.719 --> 0:38:17.359 and then you know, we've probably waved around at least 0:38:17.400 --> 0:38:20.080 a little bit. And by the way, speaking of of 0:38:20.360 --> 0:38:23.000 poking around in a fire with sticks, I want to 0:38:23.040 --> 0:38:26.680 come back to a second to fireworks, because this is 0:38:26.680 --> 0:38:29.560 apparently the genesis of fireworks as well, Because if you 0:38:29.560 --> 0:38:33.920 have ever thrown bamboo into a fire, you have probably 0:38:33.920 --> 0:38:37.080 observed what happens when the heat causes the they trapped 0:38:37.080 --> 0:38:41.160 air inside bamboo to rapidly expand, producing a popping sound. 0:38:41.760 --> 0:38:45.960 So fireworks are a chemical attempt to equal this amusement. 0:38:46.239 --> 0:38:49.600 I didn't know that. Yeah, But outside of fireworks and amusement, 0:38:50.160 --> 0:38:51.680 poking a stick into a fire is a good way 0:38:51.680 --> 0:38:52.960 to get a little bit of fire and move it 0:38:53.040 --> 0:38:55.880 somewhere else. But it's especially if you're in a hurry. 0:38:55.920 --> 0:38:58.160 Some sticks and twigs are gonna work better than others. 0:38:58.520 --> 0:39:01.520 Some choices are gonna burn too quickly. Others are going 0:39:01.560 --> 0:39:06.120 to be too resistant to burning. Fortunately, the human masters 0:39:06.120 --> 0:39:09.239 of fire new a thing or two about other substances, 0:39:09.280 --> 0:39:13.319 substances that they inevitably tested with fire as well. How 0:39:13.360 --> 0:39:15.640 will this burn? What happens when we put this into 0:39:15.680 --> 0:39:19.080 the camp fire? Certain substances ignited in the presence of 0:39:19.120 --> 0:39:22.960 a flame and therefore prove useful. So in this we 0:39:23.040 --> 0:39:28.120 finally reach the origins, the ancient, misty origins of the 0:39:28.160 --> 0:39:32.120 match stick uh, in the form of the sulfur match. Right, 0:39:32.120 --> 0:39:34.160 we're not to the friction match yet, but we are 0:39:34.239 --> 0:39:37.080 now to the chemical match. So maybe we should take 0:39:37.080 --> 0:39:39.040 a break and then we come back. We can discuss 0:39:39.239 --> 0:39:47.280 sulfur and matches. All right, we're back. So a sulfur 0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:50.440 match is as simple as it sounds. It is a 0:39:50.480 --> 0:39:54.440 tiny stick, really a splinter that has been dipped in 0:39:54.600 --> 0:39:58.840 sulfur uh and the sulfur ignites easily, and therefore it 0:39:58.960 --> 0:40:01.960 is it is essentially match without the striking ability. So 0:40:02.080 --> 0:40:04.360 in this I want to come back to what that 0:40:04.480 --> 0:40:08.080 quote from Walter Hoe earlier about campfires being the beginning 0:40:08.120 --> 0:40:12.600 of that enormous fuel industry, because one can easily imagine 0:40:12.600 --> 0:40:15.520 that this doesn't just mean the wholesale harvesting of wood 0:40:15.520 --> 0:40:18.239 in the surrounding area to to maintain a fire. Just 0:40:18.280 --> 0:40:20.920 think of how we adapt to the use of a 0:40:20.960 --> 0:40:24.880 home fireplace or a backyard grill. Do you make pains 0:40:24.960 --> 0:40:28.319 to keep some dry logs on hand for your fireplace? Uh? 0:40:28.400 --> 0:40:30.759 Do you split them ahead of time? Do you make 0:40:30.800 --> 0:40:34.359 sure you have varied sizes on hand? Do you stockpile 0:40:34.640 --> 0:40:37.719 bits of kindling or tender to get it going? Do 0:40:37.760 --> 0:40:39.600 you have like you do you you point out that 0:40:39.840 --> 0:40:42.000 you know bits of cardboard that look useful and stick 0:40:42.040 --> 0:40:45.759 those aside for later, because that's that's part of the process. Here, 0:40:45.920 --> 0:40:48.919 I will say, of of all the hard labor i've 0:40:49.000 --> 0:40:51.160 I've ever tried out. I think one of the most 0:40:51.239 --> 0:40:55.040 fun was splitting firewood. I really enjoyed that. I mean, obviously, 0:40:55.080 --> 0:40:58.000 I'm sure that gets really into backbreaking work if you 0:40:58.040 --> 0:40:59.719 have to keep doing it over and over a lot, 0:40:59.800 --> 0:41:02.720 But just doing a little splitting of firewood I found 0:41:02.719 --> 0:41:05.560 to be extremely enjoyable. So they might maybe there's something 0:41:05.600 --> 0:41:08.880 primal in that, because when you're doing that, when you're 0:41:08.880 --> 0:41:12.480 splitting the wood, even you were you were manufacturing something, 0:41:12.520 --> 0:41:16.080 you know you are, you were making fuel. The logs 0:41:16.080 --> 0:41:19.200 of your fire are a product of human remaking, and 0:41:19.239 --> 0:41:21.759 we mainly think of fuel as a product of reduction, 0:41:22.200 --> 0:41:24.319 uh you know, taking the tree, chopping it up into 0:41:24.360 --> 0:41:27.520 pieces and picking up the splinters, et cetera, gathering of 0:41:28.040 --> 0:41:32.560 uh little sticks and whatnot. But the process can also 0:41:32.920 --> 0:41:37.080 involve the combination of elements. And so in this week 0:41:37.080 --> 0:41:40.719 come to the sulfur match, an early invention to aid 0:41:40.719 --> 0:41:44.360 in the transfer of fire from from the hearth, or 0:41:44.400 --> 0:41:47.759 from the campfire, or from even a candle to some 0:41:47.840 --> 0:41:52.719 other medium. And these were initially the early matches were 0:41:52.760 --> 0:41:55.520 simply it's just splinters with you know, nothing else on them, 0:41:55.560 --> 0:41:57.960 just a little stick that you could use. But it 0:41:58.040 --> 0:42:01.080 was found that you could dip the splinter or in say, sulfur, 0:42:01.320 --> 0:42:04.920 to create a splinter of kindling that ignites readily when 0:42:05.000 --> 0:42:08.160 touched to flame and then burns down the length of 0:42:08.200 --> 0:42:10.879 that splinter and allows you to you know, say move 0:42:11.040 --> 0:42:12.839 move a little fire from one part of the camp 0:42:12.920 --> 0:42:14.799 to the other, from one part of the home to 0:42:14.880 --> 0:42:18.279 the other. Yes. Uh, now we mentioned this earlier, but 0:42:18.280 --> 0:42:20.440 I just want to stress again so as not to 0:42:20.440 --> 0:42:24.680 have any confusion, that we're not talking about standalone friction 0:42:24.840 --> 0:42:28.120 strike matches here. Those wouldn't come until later. What we're 0:42:28.120 --> 0:42:31.400 talking about with these early sulfur matches would be things 0:42:31.440 --> 0:42:34.360 that are ignited by the heat of a pre existing 0:42:34.480 --> 0:42:38.399 flame or maybe maybe easily catch fire as a kind 0:42:38.400 --> 0:42:41.279 of chemically enhanced tinder. Yeah. I like to come back 0:42:41.320 --> 0:42:43.719 to the tinder box, the idea of getting the you know, 0:42:43.920 --> 0:42:46.160 getting the spark, getting the spark going just a little 0:42:46.160 --> 0:42:47.880 bit in the tinder, and then you could use a 0:42:47.920 --> 0:42:50.760 sulfur match to take it up to the next level 0:42:50.760 --> 0:42:53.759 and then transfer it uh somewhere else to burn, right, 0:42:53.800 --> 0:42:56.400 Because that's one thing that sulfur really helps with. It 0:42:56.480 --> 0:42:59.279 suddenly gets you a big burst of flame out of 0:42:59.280 --> 0:43:02.400 a little and shall heat. Yes, So again these are 0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:06.400 sticks dipped in sulfur Uh, and Wizniak writes that sulfur 0:43:06.400 --> 0:43:09.759 tip matches were already in use in China by the 0:43:09.800 --> 0:43:14.840 sixth century CE. According to Science and Civilization in China 0:43:14.920 --> 0:43:18.520 by Joseph Needham from nine two, this very much seems 0:43:18.520 --> 0:43:22.360 to be the case. He points as well to Thoulku's 0:43:22.800 --> 0:43:26.319 Records of the Unworldly and the Strange from the year 0:43:26.440 --> 0:43:30.680 nine fifty quote, if there occurs an emergency at night, 0:43:30.920 --> 0:43:33.520 it may take some time to make a light to 0:43:33.680 --> 0:43:36.960 light a lamp. But an ingenious man devised a system 0:43:37.000 --> 0:43:40.120 of impregnating little sticks of pine wood with sulfur and 0:43:40.239 --> 0:43:43.520 storing them for ready use. At the slightest touch of fire, 0:43:43.560 --> 0:43:46.759 they burst into flame. One gets a little flame like 0:43:46.800 --> 0:43:50.280 an ear of corn. This marvelous thing was formerly called 0:43:50.360 --> 0:43:54.719 a light bringing slave or yin kuang Nu, but afterwards, 0:43:54.719 --> 0:43:57.160 when it became an article of commerce, its name was 0:43:57.280 --> 0:44:01.120 changed to fire inch stick or wo shoon. And then 0:44:01.120 --> 0:44:05.000 he adds that in thirteen sixty six Uh, an author 0:44:05.080 --> 0:44:07.840 by the name of Thal Song wrote about the invention 0:44:08.239 --> 0:44:10.239 uh and mentioned that it was sometimes credited to the 0:44:10.239 --> 0:44:14.200 people of hang Chow where the writings where the writings 0:44:14.239 --> 0:44:17.399 of Marco Polo described its sale. This would have been 0:44:17.440 --> 0:44:22.280 in the UH thirdly fourteenth century. But to assume writes 0:44:22.360 --> 0:44:26.959 that it was actually the UH the invention of impoverished 0:44:27.000 --> 0:44:31.640 court ladies of the Northern Chi in five seventy seven 0:44:31.719 --> 0:44:35.360 during a conquest by the Empire of the Sioux. That's interesting. 0:44:35.360 --> 0:44:37.800 And I love that quote by Talkou, but I wonder 0:44:37.960 --> 0:44:41.200 what it what is being translated as ear of corn there, 0:44:41.200 --> 0:44:45.120 because I know tal Kou was not talking about Mayze, right, 0:44:45.640 --> 0:44:47.719 mays wouldn't have been in China at the time, right. 0:44:48.280 --> 0:44:51.120 That's an interesting point. You know, I think all kinds 0:44:51.160 --> 0:44:54.240 of grains used to just be called corn. So maybe 0:44:54.239 --> 0:44:57.000 that's just the idea that the flame, the resulting flame 0:44:57.040 --> 0:45:00.640 after the spark is like this tiny colonel of or 0:45:00.800 --> 0:45:03.319 this tiny seed, and it is very or something. Yeah, 0:45:03.520 --> 0:45:05.479 And it is very much like a seed, right, because 0:45:05.840 --> 0:45:08.120 it may be planted somewhere else where it may grow. 0:45:08.560 --> 0:45:10.719 And of course the idea that it was originally called 0:45:10.719 --> 0:45:16.840 a light bringing slave is also interesting. Now Needham added 0:45:16.880 --> 0:45:20.840 that there's there's meanwhile, according to him, no positive evidence 0:45:20.840 --> 0:45:25.040 of sulfur matches showing up in Europe before thirty where 0:45:25.040 --> 0:45:28.600 they were then used up through the eighteenth century. Uh 0:45:28.640 --> 0:45:31.080 and and they were during this time a prime means 0:45:31.120 --> 0:45:34.040 of transferring the flame from a tinder box to another fuel. 0:45:34.719 --> 0:45:38.279 But I have to note that Whisney act Rites of 0:45:38.320 --> 0:45:42.560 the Romans using sulfur matches. He mentions first century Roman 0:45:42.600 --> 0:45:45.640 historian Plenty of the Elder's writings in the Natural History, 0:45:45.680 --> 0:45:50.879 and indeed, uh, Plenty mentions matches at least in the translation. 0:45:51.239 --> 0:45:53.800 And this would be the bow Stock and Riley trans 0:45:53.960 --> 0:45:57.960 Bostock and Riley translation. Uh. There there is mention of 0:45:57.960 --> 0:46:02.239 of sulfur certainly, and then sulfur matches. So he there's 0:46:02.239 --> 0:46:04.160 a big section here where he's going on and on 0:46:04.160 --> 0:46:07.720 about sulfury, writes that they're four kinds of sulfur. Quote 0:46:07.719 --> 0:46:10.520 the fourth kind is used in the preparation of matches 0:46:10.840 --> 0:46:14.560 more particularly unquote. Yeah, I wonder I don't have the 0:46:14.640 --> 0:46:18.080 Latin expertise to investigate this myself, but I wonder if 0:46:18.120 --> 0:46:21.520 this could be an issue with whatever Latin term both 0:46:21.560 --> 0:46:24.960 Stock and Riley are translating as the English word matches 0:46:25.160 --> 0:46:29.319 there because uh, I mean, I'm wondering if like this 0:46:29.360 --> 0:46:32.160 could be a misleading use of the English word matches 0:46:32.600 --> 0:46:35.279 because Plenty does not describe what he's talking about. He 0:46:35.280 --> 0:46:39.080 doesn't further explain anything. He just says, sulfur is used 0:46:39.080 --> 0:46:41.799 in the preparation of and then whatever this noun is, 0:46:42.400 --> 0:46:43.960 there's another now, and I know we'll come back to 0:46:44.000 --> 0:46:46.160 in a second sulfurata. And I don't know if that's 0:46:46.200 --> 0:46:50.320 the noun he uses in Latin. There, yeah, yeah, sulfur rata. 0:46:50.640 --> 0:46:53.800 I ran across this. There's a there's a paper Sulfur 0:46:53.840 --> 0:46:57.640 for Broken Glass by H. J. Leon in Transactions and 0:46:57.680 --> 0:47:02.080 Proceedings of the American philip Logical Association, Volume seventy two. 0:47:02.120 --> 0:47:05.799 And this is from one but it it ruminates on 0:47:05.880 --> 0:47:09.319 the use of this word sulfurata in the writings of 0:47:09.360 --> 0:47:13.960 the first century Roman poet Marshal And in this use H. D. 0:47:14.120 --> 0:47:19.680 Leon believed that sulfurata clearly meant quote sulfur tipped pieces 0:47:19.680 --> 0:47:22.200 of wood to be used for lighting fires. In the 0:47:22.719 --> 0:47:26.200 this uh, this piece, he is he is extremely um 0:47:26.560 --> 0:47:29.040 confident that this is what is being described. But I 0:47:29.080 --> 0:47:31.520 love the other stuff that Plenty seems to be more 0:47:31.600 --> 0:47:34.680 interested in. Sulfur for right. Oh yeah, yeah. Most of 0:47:34.760 --> 0:47:38.160 what plenty is talking about are medicinal uses for sulfur 0:47:39.200 --> 0:47:42.800 one for instance, uh quote in addition to these several uses, 0:47:42.800 --> 0:47:45.840 sulfur is of remarkable virtue that if it is thrown 0:47:45.920 --> 0:47:48.759 upon the fire, it will at once detect by the 0:47:48.800 --> 0:47:52.839 smell whether or not a person is subject to epilepsy. Uh. 0:47:52.840 --> 0:47:55.000 And then you know it also writes, sulfur has its 0:47:55.000 --> 0:47:58.520 place among other religious ceremonies, being used as a fumigation 0:47:58.600 --> 0:48:02.280 for purifying houses. Its virtues are also to be perceived 0:48:02.320 --> 0:48:05.320 in certain hot mineral waters. And there is no substance 0:48:05.360 --> 0:48:08.239 that ignites more readily a proof that there is in 0:48:08.320 --> 0:48:11.240 it a great affinity to fire. Well, he's right about 0:48:11.239 --> 0:48:13.360 that part. I would be very surprised if he's correct 0:48:13.400 --> 0:48:16.719 about the epilepsy thing right now. Now need him, I 0:48:16.719 --> 0:48:18.120 want to come back to him for a second. And 0:48:18.280 --> 0:48:21.480 he was clearly writing with a focus on on China. 0:48:22.160 --> 0:48:24.760 Uh and uh. The curious thing is, though he cites 0:48:24.800 --> 0:48:28.280 Plenties writing several times in his book when discussing Chinese 0:48:28.280 --> 0:48:31.840 inventions and you know, comparing what was known and among 0:48:31.840 --> 0:48:35.480 the Romans such as you know, optics and burning glasses, 0:48:35.520 --> 0:48:40.239 glasses used to magnify light and create a fire. So 0:48:40.280 --> 0:48:44.120 I'm not sure why he doesn't mention the sulfur matches again, 0:48:44.200 --> 0:48:47.600 unless it's a translation issue, I'm not sure that I'll 0:48:47.600 --> 0:48:49.640 have to remain an open question for now. So at 0:48:49.640 --> 0:48:51.680 any rate, it would seem like we're looking at two 0:48:51.680 --> 0:48:54.880 possibilities here. One is that the sulfur match was a 0:48:55.000 --> 0:48:58.359 Chinese invention that made its way to Rome during the 0:48:58.400 --> 0:49:01.840 first century of its invention, and while there was little 0:49:01.880 --> 0:49:05.719 direct contact between China and Rome, there was trade through 0:49:06.160 --> 0:49:10.120 intermediary empires, so one can imagine a useful and simple 0:49:10.200 --> 0:49:14.239 technology like this could spread pretty quickly. Um, you know, 0:49:14.280 --> 0:49:17.640 even at that time. The other possibility, and I have 0:49:17.680 --> 0:49:20.120 to stress that I do not see anyone actually making 0:49:20.160 --> 0:49:23.239 this claim, would be that the sulfur match was independently 0:49:23.280 --> 0:49:27.200 invented in both regions, which is just, of course possible, 0:49:27.280 --> 0:49:30.120 because sure, because we're not talking about I mean, just 0:49:30.200 --> 0:49:32.239 that's just the nature of invention. If you've mentioned listen 0:49:32.320 --> 0:49:36.840 to our show, like that's that's almost always a possibility. Um. However, 0:49:37.000 --> 0:49:40.239 I I really didn't run across anybody arguing for that. 0:49:40.320 --> 0:49:44.160 It seems like the Chinese origin tends to be stressed 0:49:44.480 --> 0:49:47.000 and tends to be uh the one people point to 0:49:47.640 --> 0:49:51.400 and this Roman mention of matches. Uh, I don't know. 0:49:51.440 --> 0:49:55.360 It's it's curious. By the way, when I was looking 0:49:55.360 --> 0:49:57.960 into all this about, you know, what kind of contact 0:49:58.000 --> 0:50:01.560 was there between Rome and in China during the first 0:50:01.560 --> 0:50:06.600 century CE I, I I ran across an interesting hypothesis that 0:50:06.640 --> 0:50:11.439 was put forward by sinologist Homer H. Dubbs, who lived 0:50:12.520 --> 0:50:17.120 ninety nine. He'sn't known for translating Bongoose Book of Han, 0:50:17.800 --> 0:50:21.480 and he apparently speculated that Roman prisoners of war who 0:50:21.480 --> 0:50:25.520 were transferred to the eastern border of the Ptarthian Empire 0:50:26.000 --> 0:50:29.680 might later have actually clashed with Han troops, pointing to 0:50:29.760 --> 0:50:33.200 Chinese accounts of a hundred soldiers in what was described 0:50:33.239 --> 0:50:36.719 as fish scale Formation that fought at the Battle of 0:50:37.080 --> 0:50:40.560 Gigi in thirty six b C. Now, this is not 0:50:40.719 --> 0:50:44.120 proven and there's no modern evidence DNA or otherwise to 0:50:44.160 --> 0:50:46.400 back it up. Um. And then it also does not 0:50:46.520 --> 0:50:49.640 tie into the history of matches at all. But I 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:51.080 found that to just be one of these sort of 0:50:51.120 --> 0:50:55.719 fascinating um hypotheses that come up. And also there's their 0:50:55.800 --> 0:51:00.960 movie right there. Um, this lost hundred Roman uh soldiers 0:51:01.000 --> 0:51:04.120 that wind up in China fighting a battle. I pay 0:51:04.160 --> 0:51:06.719 to see that. So the Parthian Empire would have been 0:51:06.840 --> 0:51:11.920 in between. That would be like roughly Persian territory. Yeah. Yeah, Basically, 0:51:11.920 --> 0:51:15.520 this would be one of the intermediary empires discussed, like generally, 0:51:15.719 --> 0:51:18.600 one of the regions through which things traveled and through 0:51:18.680 --> 0:51:23.120 which these two far flung empires would interact with each other. Uh, 0:51:23.239 --> 0:51:25.360 you know, even if it was only and as a 0:51:25.400 --> 0:51:28.719 matter of trade. So here's the thing, though, if the 0:51:28.840 --> 0:51:33.400 Romans had sulfur matches and then the sulfur match really 0:51:33.480 --> 0:51:37.520 disappeared for hundreds and hundreds of years, that that just 0:51:37.560 --> 0:51:39.880 seems kind of hot hard to believe. Like, certainly there 0:51:39.920 --> 0:51:44.680 were technologies Roman technologies that were lost for for a 0:51:44.719 --> 0:51:48.080 long time, such as Romans cement so that we mentioned 0:51:48.080 --> 0:51:51.640 in our episodes on Roads, but it's hard to imagine 0:51:51.680 --> 0:51:55.520 something like a sulfur match being forgotten after the fall 0:51:55.560 --> 0:51:57.920 of Rome. Yeah. I don't know that that's strange. I mean, 0:51:58.960 --> 0:52:03.600 I don't know anything about availability of sulfur throughout throughout 0:52:03.600 --> 0:52:06.279 Europe in the Middle Ages. Was it scarce? I'm not 0:52:06.320 --> 0:52:08.279 sure At any rate, I don't want to I don't 0:52:08.280 --> 0:52:10.520 want to cast bit any doubt on the Chinese origin 0:52:10.680 --> 0:52:12.840 of the sulfur match that does seem to be the 0:52:13.520 --> 0:52:17.840 origin of the invention. However, this is just the beginning 0:52:17.960 --> 0:52:20.840 of the story. There's there's still so much more that 0:52:20.920 --> 0:52:24.880 has to happen before this sulfur match, this sulfur tipped 0:52:25.080 --> 0:52:29.839 piece of kindling eventually transforms into the modern strike match, 0:52:29.880 --> 0:52:32.719 the modern safety match that we we know and take 0:52:32.760 --> 0:52:35.560 for granted today. I'm so excited to keep playing with 0:52:35.640 --> 0:52:41.200 matches all right. In the meantime, we would obviously love 0:52:41.239 --> 0:52:43.879 to hear from anyone out there, because everyone has an 0:52:43.920 --> 0:52:47.320 experience with matches with fire. With just the human mastery 0:52:47.320 --> 0:52:50.440 of fire, and hopefully just even so far, we've forced 0:52:50.440 --> 0:52:53.480 you to rethink how you how we use fire, how 0:52:53.520 --> 0:52:55.680 we depend on fire, and the role fire has played 0:52:56.000 --> 0:52:59.000 in human history and in the history of invention. If 0:52:59.000 --> 0:53:01.400 you want to check out other episodes of this show, 0:53:01.840 --> 0:53:03.520 you can find them wherever you get your podcast. If 0:53:03.560 --> 0:53:05.720 you go to invention pod dot com, that will direct 0:53:05.800 --> 0:53:08.040 you uh to the I heart page where you can 0:53:08.080 --> 0:53:11.319 download the apps. But wherever you get the show, just 0:53:11.400 --> 0:53:14.000 make sure that you subscribe and make sure that you 0:53:14.120 --> 0:53:16.439 rate interview because that really helps out the show. And Hey, 0:53:16.680 --> 0:53:19.479 through good old fashioned human and our interaction, just tell 0:53:19.520 --> 0:53:22.480 people about the show. Uh, that is ultimately the best 0:53:22.520 --> 0:53:25.840 way that it spreads spread the fire. Yeah. Huge, thanks 0:53:25.840 --> 0:53:29.200 as always to our awesome audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. 0:53:29.480 --> 0:53:31.080 If you'd like to get in touch with us with 0:53:31.200 --> 0:53:33.840 feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a 0:53:33.920 --> 0:53:36.319 topic for the future, just to say hello, you can 0:53:36.400 --> 0:53:43.680 email us at contact at invention pod dot com. Invention 0:53:43.760 --> 0:53:46.560 is production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my 0:53:46.600 --> 0:53:49.320 heart Radio because the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or 0:53:49.320 --> 0:53:50.880 wherever you listen to your favorite shows.