Cooking
Cocinado de alimentos
- Date
- c. 780 ka · confidence medium
- Place
- Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Jordan Valley, Israel
- Credited to
- Homo erectus
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Remains of fish cooked at controlled temperature (giant carp teeth) and recurring hearths show the thermal transformation of food. Cooking multiplies assimilable energy and reduces pathogens.
Wrangham's hypothesis places cooking 1.9 million years ago in H. erectus without direct evidence; firm archaeological evidence begins c. 780 ka.
What it led to
- Reduction of teeth, jaws and gut: energy redirected to the brain
- Expansion of the diet to tubers and toxic raw grains
- Reduced chewing time, freed for social activities
- Division of tasks and commensality around the hearth
Built on
- Butchery and tool-assisted scavengingc. 2.5 Ma
- Control of firec. 1 Ma
- Control of fire
- Butchery and tool-assisted scavenging
Made possible
- Earth oven and clay-lined hearthsc. 32 ka
- Grinding of wild cereals (grinding stone)c. 23 ka
- Popcorn (popping maize)c. 4700 BCE
- Millet noodles of Lajiac. 2000 BCE
- Babylonian culinary tablets (Yale Collection)c. 1750 BCE
- Chopsticksc. 1200 BCE
- Stir-frying in a wok (chao)c. 544
- Earth oven and clay-lined hearths
- Smoking and drying of food
- Grinding of wild cereals (grinding stone)