Posted on 03/14/2011 8:42:49 PM PDT by decimon
Early humans may have moved north into the chilly latitudes of Europe hundreds of thousands of years before mastering a crucial technology: Fire.
A survey of 141 archaeological sites in Europe found no evidence of habitual use of fire prior to about 400,000 years ago. Early humans arrived much earlier. Some archeological evidence indicates they arrived in southern Europe more than a million years ago, and the Happisburgh site in the northeastern part of England's Norfolk region contains stone tools dating back more than 800,000 years ago.
Evidence for the use of fire – concentrations of ashes and charcoal, sediments reddened by heat, rocks scarred by heat and burned bones – is nonexistent in Europe until around 400,000 years ago, write the researchers Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in The Netherlands and Paola Villa of the University of Colorado Museum in Boulder.
The earliest possible evidence of fire comes from two sites that date back to that time, they write. These are located in Schöningen, Germany (where heated stone and charred wood, including a wooden tool, have been found) and the Beeches Pit in England (where archaeologists have uncovered evidence of ancient fireplaces). The sites containing strong evidence of fire, 119 total, are all believed to have been occupied by Neanderthals.
The researchers' conclusion is controversial, because others have put early humans' mastery of fire earlier in our history, as long ago as 2 million years. What's more, fire is widely thought to have made the transition northward — into areas where the temperature dropped below freezing — possible.
Richard Wrangham, of Harvard University, has argued that by making cooking possible, the use of fire allowed our ancestors to evolve larger, more calorie-hungry brains and bodies, and smaller guts suited for more easily digested food.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Hang fire ping.
“tools dating back more than 800,000 years ago”
Yep. They know because of the minerals they found it in.
And they date those minerals by the artifacts found in it...
We still haven’t mastered fire, that why we have fire departments.
Wait a minute... I thought Prometheus gave fire to man, against the wishes of the mighty Zeus.
Some still have not mastered it yet.
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maybe it wasn’t as chilly as we thought? If people used the equivalent of 16-brick stoves which use very little fuel, would there be fire traces of their use?
Actually, Sterno stoves were used. They were so valued, that they were passed down through the generations and is why we can not find any evidence of them in archeological digs.
http://www.sterno.com/retail/pages/stove.html
;^D
funny funny, but seriously, 16-brick stoves only take a few twigs to boil water and the heat is focused up not on the ground, leaving no scorched rocks
It wouldn't be the only time the technology of fire was lost.
When the Brits showed up the native Tasmanians were ignorant of fire.
I want to know how to make 16 brick stoves. What are they?
What ignorant bullshit!
How gullible do these apes think we are?
>> “It is rocket science...” <<
.
Beans for dinner?
Really! When there’s no electricity I want to be able to cook, after my propane tanks run out. I have a wood cook stove but they’re so hot to cook on. I like the sound of one that uses twigs.
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