Control of fire
Control y mantenimiento del fuego
- Date
- c. 1 Ma · confidence medium
- Place
- Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape, South Africa
- Credited to
- Homo erectus
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Ash and burnt bone inside Wonderwerk Cave indicate fires maintained by hominins. It is the first source of energy external to the body mastered by humanity.
Koobi Fora and Chesowanja (1.5 Ma) are disputed; habitual, universal use of fire is only clear from c. 400 ka onward (Gesher Benot Ya'aqov 790 ka, Qesem, Beeches Pit).
What it led to
- Heat and light: an extended useful day and colonisation of cold latitudes
- Protection from predators and the possibility of sleeping on the ground
- The hearth as a social centre: conversation, ritual and oral transmission
- Cooking of food and hardening of wooden points
Built on
Made possible
- Cookingc. 780 ka
- Wooden spear (Schöningen)c. 300 ka
- Structured central hearth and domestic spacec. 300 ka
- Birch bark tar adhesivec. 200 ka
- Wild grass seed grinding (wild sorghum)c. 105 ka
- Heat treatment of silcretec. 72 ka
- Fire-making by percussionc. 50 ka
- Pottery vessels (Xianrendong)c. 20 ka
- Stone fat lampc. 19 ka
- Aboriginal fire management (fire-stick farming)desde c. 10 000 BCE (discutido, quizá mucho antes)
- African hunter-gatherer potteryc. 9400 BCE
- Salt production (brine boiling) and saltingc. 6050 BCE
- Wooden spear (Schöningen)
- Birch bark tar adhesive
- Heat treatment of silcrete
- Stone fat lamp
- Pottery vessels (Xianrendong)