Embed
Study Finds Earliest Evidence of Cooking
by VOA - Voice of America English News
Embed
The code has been copied to your clipboard.
The URL has been copied to your clipboard
No media source currently available
A recent study found what could be the earliest known evidence of ancient cooking: the leftovers of a fish dinner from 780,000 years ago.
Cooking helped change our ancestors. It helped fuel our evolution and gave us bigger brains. Later, cooking would become central to the eating celebrations that brought communities together.
The new study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, is based on material from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel — a watery place near an ancient lake.
Ancient objects from the area suggest it was home to a community of hom*o erectus, a kind of early human that walked upright, explained study lead writer Irit Zohar of Tel Aviv University.
Naama Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem led the research digs. She said researchers found fish remains, especially teeth. Many of the teeth were from two different kinds of fish known as carp.
The remains were found near places where researchers also found signs of fire. Testing showed the teeth had been exposed to temperatures that were hot, but not super-hot. This suggests the fish were cooked low and slow, rather than being put right onto a fire, Zohar explained.
With all the evidence together, researchers concluded that these ancient human relatives had used fire for cooking some 780,000 years ago. That is much earlier than the next oldest evidence for cooking, about 170,000 years ago, which showed Stone Age humans ate cooked roots in South Africa.
Cooking might have started even earlier
The researchers — like many other experts — believe cooking started long before this, though physical evidence has been hard to find.
“I am sure that in the near future an earlier case will be reported,” study writer Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University said in an email.
That is in part because using fire for cooking was an important step in human evolution.
Cooking food makes it easier for the body to digest and get nutrients, explained David Braun of George Washington University. Braun was not involved with the study. When early humans figured out how to cook, they were able to get more energy, which they could use to fuel bigger brains.
Based on how human ancestors’ brains and bodies developed, scientists estimate that cooking skills appeared nearly 2 million years ago.
“If we’re out there eating raw items, it is very difficult to make it as a large-bodied primate,” Braun said.
Those first cooked meals were far different from today’s food. And in the many, many years in between, humans started not just eating for fuel, but for community.
Cooking food to build community
In a 2010 study, led by Natalie Munro of the University of Connecticut, researchers described the earliest evidence of a feast. The feast was a specially prepared meal that brought people together for an event 12,000 years ago in a cave in Israel.
The cave, which served as a burial place, included the remains of one special woman who seemed to be a religious leader for her community, Munro said.
This “first feast” came at an important turning point in human history, right as hunter-gatherers were starting to settle into more permanent living situations, Munro said. Gathering for special meals may have been a way to build community and reduce tensions now that people lived closer to each other, she said.
Munro said she believes ancient feasts served a lot of the same social uses that modern gatherings serve: People exchange information, make connections, or try to improve their position.
“This is something that’s just quintessentially human,” Munro said. “And to see the first evidence of it is exciting.”
I'm John Russell.
Maddie Burakoff wrote this story for The Associated Press. John Russell adapted the story for Learning English.
_____________________________________________________________
Words in This Story
evolution – n. the process by which changes in plants and animals happen over time
expose -- v. to cause (someone) to experience something or to be influenced or affected by something
digest -- v. to change (food that you have eaten) by a biological process into simpler forms that can be used by the body
raw – adj. not cooked
primate – n. any member of the group of animals that includes human beings, apes, and monkeys
quintessentially – adv. the perfect example of something
FAQs
Scientists have found the earliest known evidence of cooking at an archaeological site in Israel. The shift from eating raw to cooked food was a dramatic turning point in human evolution, and the discovery has suggested prehistoric humans were able to deliberately make fires to cook food at least 780,000 years ago.
When was cooking first discovered? ›
Scientists have found the earliest known evidence of cooking at an archaeological site in Israel. The shift from eating raw to cooked food was a dramatic turning point in human evolution, and the discovery has suggested prehistoric humans were able to deliberately make fires to cook food at least 780,000 years ago.
How did early humans know how to cook? ›
In order to cook food, our distant ancestors had to learn how to use fire. The earliest known fire pits, or hearths, are about 800,000 years old.
What is the oldest evidence of the controlled use of fire to cook food researchers report? ›
A close analysis of the remains of a carp-like fish found at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY) archaeological site in Israel shows that the fish were cooked roughly 780,000 years ago.
When did hominins start cooking it might be earlier than we thought? ›
How and when did the culinary arts begin? Well, it may have started much earlier than thought, with new research suggesting early humans were cooking their food 780,000 years ago – 600,000 years earlier than previously believed.
Which was the earliest known technique of cooking? ›
Archaeological evidence from 300,000 years ago, in the form of ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint, are found across Europe and the Middle East. The oldest evidence (via heated fish teeth from a deep cave) of controlled use of fire to cook food by archaic humans was dated to ~780,000 years ago.
What is the oldest method of cooking? ›
One of the oldest forms of cooking, stemming from the paleolithic era. Smoking, also known as smoke-curing, is a technique that involves cooking food, mainly meat, over a high-smoking, low flame area. The smoke imparts a rich, smoky flavor to the food, and the low heat ensures that the food is cooked slowly and evenly.
Did early humans eat raw meat? ›
hom*o antecessor, seen by some researchers as the last common ancestor of both Neanderthals and us hom*o sapiens, did eat raw meat, according to dental plaque analysis. Forensic evidence also reveals that this primitive ancestor was a cannibal who even preyed on infants and children.
What did humans eat before they could cook? ›
In the Stone Age, early humans ate raw meat, fish, nuts, seeds, and berries. The types of animals that were consumed include mammoths, rhinoceros, bears, wolves, elephants, and hyenas. Seafood was also common and included all types of fish, especially salmon, eel, whale, crab, and lobster.
What was humans first food? ›
The diet of the earliest hominins was probably somewhat similar to the diet of modern chimpanzees: omnivorous, including large quantities of fruit, leaves, flowers, bark, insects and meat (e.g., Andrews & Martin 1991; Milton 1999; Watts 2008).
Summary: The remains of a huge carp fish mark the earliest signs of cooking by prehistoric human to 780,000 years ago, predating the available data by some 600,000 years, according to researchers.
Did early humans only use fire for cooking? ›
Fire was even used in manufacturing tools for hunting and butchering. Hominids also learned that starting bush fires to burn large areas could increase land fertility and clear terrain to make hunting easier. Evidence shows that early hominids were able to corral and trap prey animals by means of fire.
How did early humans eat without fire? ›
We didn't show up until about 300,000 years ago, so there has never been a time when our species did not have fire. But if you want to include early hominids like erectus and their ancestor habilis, then yes, before fire they ate meat raw. They ate everything raw.
How did the early humans get the idea of cooking? ›
Some scientists estimate our early human cousins may have been using fire to cook their food almost 2 million years ago, long before hom*o sapiens showed up. And a recent study found what could be the earliest known evidence of this rudimentary cooking: the leftovers of a roasted carp dinner from 780,000 years ago.
How did archaeologists know that early hominids cooked their food? ›
Burnt fish teeth reveal ancient cooking practices
"This suggested that the fish had been cooked at a controlled temperature rather than just burned," study co-author Irit Zohar from Tel Aviv University, Israel, told DW. "Until now, no one could prove that hom*o erectus cooked food.
Which human ancestor early human was probably the first to cook? ›
The extinct ancient human hom*o erectus is a species of firsts. It was the first of our relatives to have human-like body proportions, with shorter arms and longer legs relative to its torso. It was also the first known hominin to migrate out of Africa, and possibly the first to cook food.
Who was the first person to cook in the world? ›
First cooking fires predate hom*o sapiens
The new study shows that hom*o erectus, an ancestor of modern humans, was cooking food much further back in history.
When did humans start cooking for pleasure? ›
Our human ancestors who began cooking sometime between 1.8 million and 400,000 years ago probably had more children who thrived, Wrangham says. Pounding and heating food “predigests” it, so our guts spend less energy breaking it down, absorb more than if the food were raw, and thus extract more fuel for our brains.
When did humans first use fire to cook food? ›
Some of the earliest known traces of controlled fire were found at the Daughters of Jacob Bridge, Israel, and dated to ~790,000 years ago. At the site, archaeologists also found the oldest likely evidence of controlled use of fire to cook food ~780,000 years ago.
What is the oldest cooked food ever found? ›
Summary: The remains of a huge carp fish mark the earliest signs of cooking by prehistoric human to 780,000 years ago, predating the available data by some 600,000 years, according to researchers.
