WEBVTT - The History of Fire 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.680 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.560 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:16.279 Chuck and Jerry's here too. We're on fire with yet 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:20.200 another fire episode of Stuff you Should Know About Fire. 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.239 Yeah, So Jerry asked me when you left the. 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.400 Room too, surprised we hadn't done one on fire, and 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:29.280 I said, well, we did years ago on just sort 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:31.240 of more than nuts and bolts in the science of 0:00:31.400 --> 0:00:35.040 the actual thing that is fire, right, But I commissioned 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.239 this one from Dave. I believe that's a little more 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.159 along the lines of like what did it mean for people? 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:44.960 And like kind of when you know? I wondered, like, 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.960 did we learn how to make fire? Was there like 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:50.199 a day that that happened? And do we know that 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.800 day and that person? And the answer is no, Unfortunately, 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:54.440 we don't know. 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:59.800 We not only don't know that, also our technology will 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.160 all will certainly never be so advanced that we will 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.600 ever find out now. And one of the reasons why 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:11.680 is because there probably was multiple people at different times 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:16.480 around the world who learned how to manipulate fire. And 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:20.399 also there's there wasn't just like a one day where 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:22.840 fire didn't exist, and then all of a sudden, somebody 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.280 like strikes a flint and some hirt or something like that, 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:31.120 and now there's fire. It happened in stages humans interactions 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.640 with fire, and luckily for us, even though there isn't 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:37.360 one day that this happened and we can't say like 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.840 it was Todd, Todd was the one who invented fire. 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.160 It is a very fascinating subject. It's definitely up my alley. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:44.839 Yeah. 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:48.760 And it may have also not been linear. We may 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:51.320 have had control of fire for a while and then 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:52.240 not for a while. 0:01:52.640 --> 0:01:53.240 Yeah. 0:01:53.280 --> 0:01:58.440 So basically what everyone agrees on scientifically is that the 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.400 discovery fire was not an inn, but it was a process. 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.560 Right, And the traditional story goes that Prometheus went on 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:11.040 a quest for fire, ended up hooking up essentially with 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.280 a human woman, and found that humans were way better 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:18.240 than his own species. That's right, and we got fire 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.079 from that, that's right. So we talked a little bit 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.680 about fire and how much we needed I remember saying 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.640 that I saw somewhere that we're obligate fire users, that 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:32.160 we essentially needed it to survive, and that raised the 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.519 question like do we still need it? And the answers yes, 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.320 we use it still today, but the role that it 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:41.080 played in human development is just staggering. Like just the 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:47.280 idea of cooking alone is like just that revolutionary change 0:02:47.639 --> 0:02:49.640 and all of the stuff that that unlocked for ust 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.800 nutrient wise, taste wise, let's not forget about taste. But 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.920 then also like we made metals with it, we made 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.120 pottery with it, we kept animals at bay with it, 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:02.960 even Mosquito they don't like fires. We learned to do 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:06.200 all these different things to interact and manipulate our world 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:10.160 using fire. So the idea of not having fire, it's 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:11.760 just terrifying. 0:03:12.080 --> 0:03:13.960 Yeah, for sure. And you know, I know, we talked 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:17.120 about this a little bit there. Theories that human language 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:19.799 was born around the campfire because now people were awake 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:23.160 and needed something to do when they sat around the fire, 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:27.040 like talk about what they did that day. Obviously, fires 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:32.120 would eventually power the fires that made steam possible and 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.360 steam engines possible and birth the industrial revolution. 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:38.040 So fire very important. 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:46.080 It's a technology which basically blew early humans minds. Obviously 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:47.640 they didn't learn how to make fire at first, and 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:49.200 we're going to go through these stages like the first 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.680 fire came from you know, a lightning strike, but even that, 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.680 you know, probably blew the minds of whatever was walking 0:03:57.720 --> 0:04:00.160 around back then and saw the ground on fire all 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:00.720 of a sudden. 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:03.600 Well yeah, what I've found fascinating though, is the idea 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.560 that fire is actually fairly new to Earth. You know, 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:12.240 like Earth was a watery planet for billions of years, 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.600 and it wasn't until the atmosphere kind of congealed into 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:20.840 its oxygenous state like it is now and that vegetation grew, 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.359 and then you started to have lightning strikes too. You 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.240 put all those three things together, now you've got fire 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.359 and it didn't exist before on Earth. That was not 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.839 something I've ever really thought of before. I thought that 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:33.560 was pretty cool. 0:04:33.960 --> 0:04:34.200 Yeah. 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.280 I think they said the Earth has been kind of 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:40.559 fire ideal for about four hundred and seventy million years, 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:42.520 which is certainly a long time, but not on the 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.320 order of you know, billions and billions of years. If 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:48.600 you go forward in time a bit to about six 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:53.720 million years ago, that's when the first homonyms appeared in Africa. 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:57.200 So now, all of a sudden, you have the conditions 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.760 for fire, and you have you know, say, people has 0:05:00.800 --> 0:05:01.400 that even. 0:05:01.240 --> 0:05:04.240 Correct Hominin's are people yeah. 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:05.600 Okay, I just don't even know what people means. 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:07.760 Hominins are people, too, Chuck. 0:05:07.760 --> 0:05:09.080 That's what I think. 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.640 All of a sudden, you had people that could eventually 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:14.800 harness fire and then learn to make fire, or at 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:17.680 the very least realize the benefits and take great interest 0:05:17.680 --> 0:05:18.080 in fire. 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:22.640 Yeah, they think, actually it's probable. So the best way 0:05:22.680 --> 0:05:24.719 to kind of look back in this kind of prehistory 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.920 where there's not only no written record or even an 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:32.600 oral tradition, like there's no archaeological evidence at this point 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:35.720 yet still even right, so it's all just complete conjecture, 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.240 but a pretty good way to kind of approach the 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:40.719 whole thing is to say, Okay, how do animals interact 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.920 with fire? Right? Because those first hominins were pretty close 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:49.159 to the great ape ancestors we evolved from. Still, so 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:50.960 you can make a pretty good case that they would 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:53.960 have interacted with fire like other animals do it. Animals 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.839 basically run away from it, they ignore it, depending on 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:58.479 whether it's a third or not, and then some of 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.760 them actually use it to their advanceage, like raptors have 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:06.200 been seen picking up burning sticks and dropping them elsewhere 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:09.520 to flush out prey and corey essentially, which is a 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:11.200 jerk move, but it works. 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:12.200 Yeah, for sure. 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:14.039 And if there was ever any kind of you know, 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:17.840 wildfire that started because of a lightning strike right behind that, 0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.800 you would see predators like wolves or even some birds, 0:06:22.200 --> 0:06:24.919 either preying on the animals as a flea or just 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:27.320 having a better hunting ground because things were now kind 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:28.080 of burned down. 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.440 You could see everything, right, So you can make a 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:35.320 pretty good case that early early humans would have essentially 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.800 been doing the same thing that we would have eventually 0:06:40.320 --> 0:06:44.480 figured out that fire offers things that non fiery things 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:48.680 don't like. For example, we probably started foraging was the 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.960 first step where after a wildfire we might have been 0:06:52.000 --> 0:06:54.840 looking for things to eat and been like, this tastes 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:58.000 way better than when I catch it and pull its 0:06:58.040 --> 0:07:01.120 head off and then start eating whatever happening here. This 0:07:01.200 --> 0:07:02.960 fire is doing something great to this. 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:07.640 Yeah, I mean, the idea of accidental cooked meat must 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:09.760 have just been mind blowing. 0:07:10.400 --> 0:07:13.760 Yeah, you know, I mean, a rare steak is a 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:19.280 thing of beauty in and of itself. But yeah, I 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:21.320 don't want to say well done, but yes, cooked meat 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.880 is good too. A cooked turkey leg is way better 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:26.440 than a raw turkey leg. 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.520 Yeah. Hey, I've never tested that theory, but I bet 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:30.960 you're right. 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.040 It's one of those things that you don't even have 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:35.480 to try yourself. You just innately know it. And it's 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:37.239 from this era. 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:38.800 Yeah, that's right. 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:42.600 Gathering after foraging was the next step of sort of 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:47.160 the discovery of fire, and that's when humans were like, hey, 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:50.800 I have this fire. It may have happened by lightning strike, 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.600 but I now have it in a little bindle in 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:57.400 my hand, and I can or maybe in a log hollow, 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.640 and I can carry this thing from one place to 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.320 another now, or maybe it's just a tree branch if 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:04.480 you're a little bit more of a simpleton like TikTok was, 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:09.119 and now you could transport your fire from one area 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.480 to the other, and you can use that fire to 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:15.640 flush prey out or to protect yourself from the sabertooth 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:16.440 tiger or whatever. 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:19.680 Yeah, that's a big one that I hadn't really thought 0:08:19.720 --> 0:08:22.440 of before. But you keep animals at bait because animals 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.320 are used to wildfires and not going near them. So 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:28.160 if you're a human or a hominin and you're huddling 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:31.280 around the fire, the sabertooth tiger probably isn't going to 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:32.480 come attack you right then. 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:36.880 You never saw Jungle Book, oh very. 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.480 Very long ago, and all I remember is Blue doing 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:39.960 his thing. 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.280 Yeah, the bare necessities. Yeah so great. 0:08:43.520 --> 0:08:47.160 Still probably my favorite, even among the moderns. My favorite 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:48.199 Disney carton. 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:51.360 My favorite's long been Robin Hood. That was always my 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:52.400 favorite as a kid. 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:54.680 Yeah, I like that Robinhood a lot. But you just 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:57.360 can't beat There's so many bangers in the Jungle Book. 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:01.760 Okay, all right, all right with that one. Then I'll 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:04.199 just stop. I'll throw out my own personal favorite in 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:05.280 favor of yours. 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:06.920 Why would you do that? 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:09.880 I just I just want to get along. 0:09:09.880 --> 0:09:11.640 Okay, all right. 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.040 So they're carrying fire around at this point, they may 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.000 have discovered like a way to actually keep it going better, 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:21.000 like I know on the survival shows, like a lone 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.400 animal dung is a great, very sort of slow burning 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.360 way to transport transport fuel, like a burning cowpie. 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:30.040 Maybe, yeah, for sure. 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:34.520 So that's the gathering thing. So we go from foraging 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:37.479 like we have no control over it. We just identified 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:40.520 that it's something special to being able to move it 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:43.480 around and keep it going. That's the key. Thanks to 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.559 the animal dung discovery, the cowpie and then we finally 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:49.240 reached the point. And this is where all of the 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:53.320 archaeologists and anthropologists and all the ologists want to kind 0:09:53.360 --> 0:09:58.560 of pinpoint when did humans start making fire ourselves? And 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:03.000 we do have evidence of humans using fire very far back, 0:10:03.120 --> 0:10:07.520 more than a million years ago, but for hundreds of 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:11.360 thousands and hundreds of thousands of years between that point 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:16.200 and where we are unambiguously making fire ourselves, there's a 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:20.640 lot of room for interpretation. Yes, we were cooking or something, 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:23.200 or we were using a fire. It's clear that there 0:10:23.200 --> 0:10:25.960 were humans around this fire, but it's not clear that 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.800 humans actually made the fire. We may have gathered it. 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.920 When did we start making fire? That's the big question 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:35.359 in archaeology and anthropology. 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:38.720 That's right, boy, it sounds like a notes early, but 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.560 it sounds like a perfect place for a little Cliffhanger's break. 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:43.000 It's what I do. 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:44.439 All right, we'll be right back. 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:57.760 Everybody want to learn about a terrosort in college, horedactyl, how. 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:00.680 To take a perfect boo, all about rectal that's at. 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.360 Hunt, the Lizzie run on the plane. 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:10.800 Everything, word up, Jerry. 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:12.280 All right, we're back. 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.640 We don't have a definitive answer unfortunately, But again, we 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.240 have a lot of good ideas as far as those 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.920 three stages go, they do get a little bit easier 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:25.160 to pinpoint a rough timeline. But that foraging stage that 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.640 we mentioned at first is that's definitely the hardest to 0:11:27.880 --> 0:11:31.960 kind of lock down in time. There is no archaeological 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:36.720 record basically during that phase. But they do think, and 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:38.840 again this is people just giving their best guess. They 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:43.800 do think that astrolopithescenes the early humans may have been 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:46.400 forging around fires and this is like four million ish 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:46.960 years ago. 0:11:47.720 --> 0:11:51.880 Yeah, yeah, for sure, I didn't see why they thought that, 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.559 but like what the austrilopithekiss was doing that made them 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:58.160 think that, But I don't know, maybe it had to 0:11:58.160 --> 0:11:59.960 do with their other behavior that made it seem like 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.679 they would have done that. So the gathering phase, like 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.520 I said, that dates back to about a million years ago, 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:12.000 where it's very clear that humans have had a fire 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.080 somewhere that it's not possible that like a lightning strike 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:19.320 set off a fire in the areas where we found 0:12:19.720 --> 0:12:25.080 evidence of human habitation and fire together, say one hundred 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:28.520 feet from the mouth of a cave, very difficult for 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:33.480 a wildfire to start there, So that's unambiguous, is what 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:38.480 they call it, like evidence that humans were interacting or 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:42.480 using fire, putting fire to some controlled use at that point, 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:45.760 but it's far from clear whether they actually started that 0:12:46.080 --> 0:12:48.600 and almost certainly did not a million years ago. 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:51.640 Yeah, and it's that can also be a little tricky 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:55.920 because sometimes they confuse stuff. Stuff that might look like 0:12:56.000 --> 0:13:01.200 charcoal or ash is some naturally occurring sediment cave. So 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:02.800 you know, they tried to kind of parse through that 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.679 stuff over the years, but they have found, you know, 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:08.719 sites like there's one and we're going to go through 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:10.079 a few of these in a minute, but one called 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.560 the Wonderwork Cave in South Africa that they basically have 0:13:14.640 --> 0:13:18.880 agreed is probably the oldest site of controlled on purpose 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:23.640 fire use because they have found burnt bones there and 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:25.839 this is one hundred feet into a cave. 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:32.520 Right, that's again unambiguous use of human fire. There's also 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.480 some contenders for when we started control like making fire 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:41.280 ourselves starting fires, and one's about seven hundred and eighty 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:44.520 thousand years ago. Four hundred thousand years seems to be 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:49.360 the generally accepted latest date that humans became capable in 0:13:49.400 --> 0:13:54.720 a widespread fashion of making fire ourselves. So somewhere between 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.120 a million and four hundred thousand years ago humans became 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:02.480 capable of making fire star fires. And I say we 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.120 talk about some of these different locations that are contenders 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:07.120 for all this stuff. 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:09.880 Well, yeah, there's the one in South Africa that I 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:14.120 just mentioned. They have found and been able to date 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:16.840 ash from that cave to about a million years ago. 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:21.240 But again we're not positive that that was you know, 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:24.880 ignited by humans or not, and they don't know exactly 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:28.600 how the fires were used in that case. But it 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.160 gets a little better as we move along. The Kassim 0:14:31.280 --> 0:14:34.600 Cave in Israel was discovered about twenty six years ago 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.640 and that is near Tel Aviv, and this is where 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:41.320 they have found the first fireplace, basically the first hearth. 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:44.840 The dates to about three hundred thousand years so that's 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:46.600 pretty unambiguous. 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:50.320 Yeah, and one of the reasons why they're like, yes, 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:52.840 this is a pit, because up to that point when 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.600 they find like use of fire, it's just like kind 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.520 of spread out. Maybe one fire was held there. This 0:14:59.640 --> 0:15:03.000 is like layer after layer after layer of fires in 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:06.280 the same place. So that's clearly a hearth. There's another 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:11.160 one in Israel called gesher banat Yakov. It's in northern Israel, 0:15:11.600 --> 0:15:14.080 and they this is the one where they think that 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:18.520 people were potentially starting fires as far back as seven 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.120 hundred and eighty thousand years ago, and this would have 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:24.440 been Homo Erectus, who was the longest lived hominin. They 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:28.520 lived for almost two million years. And they were clever 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:30.800 ones too. They were the first ones to basically take 0:15:30.840 --> 0:15:34.880 a leap forward in stone tool technology. They also invented 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:38.840 Jordash jeans. And they know that the Homo Erectus were 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.360 the ones who were making or at least using this 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:43.800 fire seven hundred and eighty thousand years ago, because they 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.520 found their characteristic stone tools like hand axes, and they 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:50.920 were cooking fish essentially here on the banks of the 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.880 Jordan River karp that were up to like six and 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:56.320 a half feet from what I read and Chuck I 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.520 was reading about how they figured out that they were 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:03.280 definitely cooking fish and that they weren't just like fish 0:16:03.560 --> 0:16:06.680 remains that they'd eaten raw and tossed into a fire. 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:11.080 And they tested the fish teeth that had been cooked 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:13.760 to see what temperature they've been exposed to it if 0:16:13.800 --> 0:16:15.960 there were a high temperature, they probably would have been 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:17.880 remains just chucked in in the middle of a fire. 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.520 If it were exposed to a lower temperature, then this 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:23.840 probably would have been a controlled roast, and they found 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.480 the evidence for roasting, so they were cooking fish about 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:28.000 eight hundred thousand years ago there. 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:28.680 Yeah. 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:31.680 The next one is the Rising Star Cave in South Africa. 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.560 Very promising cave, and this one is a little controversial 0:16:35.640 --> 0:16:38.800 in that they do think that some sort of tiny 0:16:38.840 --> 0:16:43.680 brain species of early human they were called the Homo naletti. 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:46.840 They think that they built fires in this cave, and 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.280 this was about three hundred and thirty five thousand years ago, 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:52.920 but other people came along, said no, I'm not sure 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:54.640 if that's when it happened. It might have been other 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.720 people that came to that cave later. And that similar 0:16:57.800 --> 0:17:02.240 kind of goes for another cave, k the Zuchodean Cave. 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.879 That one was excavated in the nineteen twenties and people 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.080 thought for a long long time that like, hey, here's 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:14.720 the oldest hearth, the oldest sort of purposeful fireplace, and 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:17.560 it goes back a half a million years. But it's 0:17:17.600 --> 0:17:19.560 kind of gone back and forth since in the nineties 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:23.960 nineteen nineties, that is, they saw evidence of this ash 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:25.760 there and they said, you know, I don't think this 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:26.160 is ash. 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:27.320 Actually it was. 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.200 What Chuck will talk about later as other organic materials 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.760 that looked like ash. But then later on in the 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:37.280 twenty tens, other people came back and had other evidence. 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.960 They said, no, I think they were purpose built fires here, 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:43.639 which you know, just goes to show kind of how 0:17:43.680 --> 0:17:45.000 hard it is to really pinpoint the. 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.040 Stuff, right, Yeah, going back and forth between the nineteen 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:53.320 twenties and the twenty tens like that, that's like archaeological whiplash. Yeah, 0:17:53.640 --> 0:17:56.119 so we really need to just kind of also point 0:17:56.119 --> 0:18:01.680 out here we're talking about Hamanin's using fire, not Homo sapiens. 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.560 Homo sapiens obviously knew how to use fire and how 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:09.560 to make fire, but almost certainly were not the ones 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:13.440 that came up with fire ourselves. We might have learned 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.600 it actually from some of the other species of humans 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:19.119 that were running around at the same time as we were, 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:23.840 like Neanderthals, And like I said, there's evidence of like 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.000 other species like Homo erectus using fire to one degree 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:31.959 or another as far as like maybe a million years ago, 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:36.119 but there's a lot of questions about did every single 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.360 species of human know how to make fire? And Neanderthals 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.680 in particular have been kind of picked on as not 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.640 necessarily knowing what they were doing with starting fires. 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.800 Yeah, this one has some pretty good arguments going. I 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:57.239 think in both directions. They found evidences of activity in 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:58.960 France and like sites in France that. 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:01.560 They excavated, Yeah, and they. 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:03.880 You know, what they found was there were more traces 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:08.800 of fire from periods without glaciers than periods that did 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.480 have glaciers. And it doesn't really track in some ways 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.680 because you would think that they would if they could 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:17.040 make fire on their own, then they would have done 0:19:17.040 --> 0:19:21.400 that when it was colder. And also it makes sense 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:24.680 in a way because in the period where there aren't glaciers, 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:27.200 there are going to be more lightning strikes and thunderstorms, 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.199 and the vegetation's going to be dried out. So then 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.879 may be you know, using the fire even in the 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:34.879 warmer periods because it's just there. 0:19:35.560 --> 0:19:39.320 Right exactly. They also find lots, or they have found 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:43.959 in some Neanderthal sites, lots of ash build up and 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.399 not necessarily because this is a very ancient hearth, but 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.760 because they had to keep the fire going, so it 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:52.360 was constantly going because they didn't know how to get 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:55.320 it started again if it went out. So yeah, those 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.480 are pretty good arguments for Neanderthals not being able to 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:01.159 make fire. But there are other people who point to 0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:04.359 other evidence that says like, no, actually, Neanderthals knew what 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:08.160 they were doing. One of them is that Neanderthals made 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:13.679 birch bark pitch, which they used to as basically an adhesive, 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.080 like thousands of years before Homo sapiens were doing that, 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:24.479 and that they're also frequently found with manganese dioxide chunks 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.520 as black mineral, and it was usually interpreted as they 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:31.080 were using this to like decorate their bodies or maybe 0:20:31.119 --> 0:20:35.520 even for cave art. Somebody has pointed out that no, actually, 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:38.919 manganese dioxide is a major component in fireworks and you 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.000 could use it as a pretty good fire starter. So 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:45.119 the jury's out. But for my money, they probably did 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.959 know how to start fires, because Homo sapiens have a 0:20:48.080 --> 0:20:52.400 very very long tradition of underestimating Neanderthals and being pick 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.480 and wrong in the end as the science advances. 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.600 Yeah, for sure, and while we don't know, you know 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.280 when all this started. We definitely know the how, and 0:21:01.359 --> 0:21:05.480 it's kind of how modern humans start primitive fires, like 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:09.600 without any sort of sort of man made tools. Percussion 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.920 methods is you know, when you're striking that flint off 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:16.040 of you know, each other, like off of a rock, 0:21:16.080 --> 0:21:19.120 it's going to spark. And you know, maybe they saw 0:21:19.160 --> 0:21:21.119 that and thought, hey, that looks a little bit like 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:25.240 lightning and gave it a shot. You've got the old 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:27.800 fire drill method or any kind of friction method of 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:31.560 rubbing something together really really fast, and that'll that'll get 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:32.679 a fire going if you're. 0:21:32.520 --> 0:21:36.120 Good, Yeah, the one I've heard of. Both of those obviously, 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:39.679 but fire pistons I had not heard of. Essentially, you 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:43.160 take a tube and a piston and put together they 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:46.960 essentially form an air tight well coupling. I guess. You 0:21:47.000 --> 0:21:49.959