Control of Fire in the Paleolithic

Richard Wrangham

doi:10.1086/692113

Abstract

According to current evidence, Homo sapiens was unable to survive on a diet of raw wild foods. Because cooked diets have large physiological and behavioral consequences, a critical question for understanding human evolution is when the adaptive obligation to use fire developed. Archaeological evidence of fire use is scarce before ca. 400 ka, which suggests to some that the commitment to fire must have arisen in the mid-Pleistocene or later. However, weak jaws and small teeth make all proposals for a raw diet of early Pleistocene Homo problematic. Furthermore, the mid-Pleistocene anatomical changes seem too small to explain the substantial effect expected from the development of cooking. Here I explore these and other problems. At the present time no solution is satisfactory, but this does not mean the problem should be ignored.

Highlights

Abstract) Except when accessing global markets of domesticated food species, Homo sapiens is biologically committed to a cooked diet
The cooking hypothesis posits that control of fire leads to such a large increase in energy acquisition, and reduces the physical challenges of eating food so greatly, that the evolution of an obligation to incorporate cooked food in the diet should be recognizable by evidence of novel digestive adaptations and increased energy use; and that the only time in the fossil record when the appropriate changes are seen is the early Lower Paleolithic (Parker et al 2016; Wrangham 2006; Wrangham and Carmody 2010; Wrangham et al 1999)
European Lower Paleolithic sites such as Dmanisi, Atapuerca, La Caune d’Arago and Boxgrove represent in total a screening of thousands of unburned bones but no burnt bones (Gowlett and Wrangham 2013)

Summary

Introduction

Abstract) Except when accessing global markets of domesticated food species, Homo sapiens is biologically committed to a cooked diet. While this diet leaves the men thin, it raises the question of whether African populations of H. sapiens might have been able to survive on a diet that was sufficiently focused on equivalently fat-rich and/or chewed raw wild foods, such as oil-seeds, marrow, brains or guts.

Results

Conclusion