Gaby
Long before the advent of electricity and refrigerators, people preserved meat using smoke. New research from Tel Aviv University in Israel suggests this practice dates back nearly two million years — and may have been a primary reason our ancestors learned to make fire.
In the study, paleoanthropologist Miki Ben-Dor and archaeologist Ran Barkai built on previous work linking human evolution to hunting large animals and to the gradual decrease in those animals’ size over time.
They say that although fire is closely tied to early humans, it took significant time and effort to ignite and maintain. The benefits of preserving meat could have justified that effort, Science Alert reported.
What Did the Scientists Discover?
During their research, the duo analyzed nine archaeological sites in South Africa, Kenya, Israel, Ethiopia, and Spain. They examined the sizes of animal remains found at these locations and estimated their probable ages, with some bones dating back around two million years.
Preparing to light a fire, actually starting it, and keeping it burning for long periods demanded considerable effort. “To justify this effort, our ancestors needed a “compelling, energy-efficient motive,” Ben-Dor explained.”
Fragments of charred bones from ancient animals
The researchers proposed a new hypothesis about that motive. They observed that wherever they found evidence of fires, there were also remains of large animals. Ben-Dor and Barkai calculated the energy benefits of immediately cooking and consuming meat from that large game compared with preserving it.
They found substantial evidence that these fires weren’t lit only for warmth or for immediate cooking of single large animals. The energy required to maintain the fire would outweigh the energy gained from one or two cycles of cooking meat.
The flames not only smoked and dried more meat for longer storage but were also used to ward off animals that might try to feast on the food, such as hippos or rhinos.
“For ancient people, using fire was not a commonplace activity; most archaeological sites less than 400,000 years old show no evidence of fire use. However, several early sites exhibit clear signs of fire use, but without charred bones or evidence of meat roasting,” Ben-Dor noted.
“We understand that early humans — primarily Homo erectus — used fire not regularly, but only occasionally, in specific locations and for particular purposes,” he added.
The researchers found that elephant meat could feed dozens of people for up to three months. Those millions of calories needed to be preserved to “recoup the investment in hunting.”
Barkai said the study offers “a new understanding of the factors that prompted ancient people to start using fire.”
They suggest that when people used fire for that broader purpose, it was sometimes used for immediate cooking “with zero marginal energy costs,” the scientists write.
The results of the study were published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.
