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Bryan Kennedy
Physical Anthropology, Section 4076
Professor R. Perón
April 5, 2001
The campfire remains the quiessential symbol of gathering. Around it, humans
from all walks of life unite to share stories, dreams, and tall tales. The use of fire has long
been thought to have coincided with, and perhaps aided in the precipitation of, the
evolution of modern human culture and language around forty thousand years ago. That
is, up until last year, when two controversial studies were released that brought this long
held notion into question. These new findings suggest that not only might fire have been
put to intentional use by humans as far back as 1.6 million years, but since this would date
it before the accepted emergence of symbolic communication, it may not have had the far
reaching cultural and ritualistic effects we had once thought. In the end, fire may have
only provided protection from carnivores and temporary warmth for our evolutionary
ancestors. However, these new findings do not come without much controversy. To
discover the conclusion to this fiery debate, we must go back in time with our ancestors,
and examine this spark from the past that started it all.
Fire plays an almost elemental part of everyday human culture. From the home
furnace that heats the air, to the gas stove used for cooking, we take the many uses of fire
for granted. But there was a time when our ancestors did not have this enabling capability.
Up until last year, most anthropologists believed that hominids could not have
accomplished the feat of controlling fire before the introduction of language and symbolic
communication. That would have placed the first campfire of approximately forty
thousand years, squarely in the hands of modern Homo sapiens (McCrone, 2000). At least
that’s what proponents of the “big bang” theory of human brain evolution suggest. As
they purport, while it is likely H. erectus was capable at producing complex vocal sounds
(Park, 1999), sheer mental ability was what held back our early ancestors from fullblown
symbolic communication and all that it entails, including firestarting. Without
communication, it was believed, H. erectus would lack the ability to pass the techniques
and uses of fire among individuals. This theory was challenged in the 70’s and 80’s with
the discovery of several “lenses” of burntout earth in modernday Kenya, which were
supposedly the result of deliberate fire that dated back to 1.6 million years ago (McCrone,
2000). However, those findings were severely crippled by the contention that the lenses
could have been the result of naturally burning tree stumps, mineral deposits, or fungi.
The “big bang” theory was not to be challenged until recent archeological finds again
pushed back the emergence of fire.
This time, strong evidence was to come from two sides. First, independent
investigations in 1999 by Ralph Rowlett of the University of MissouriColumbia and
Randy Bellomo of the University of South Florida, suggested that the “lenses” in Kenya
were very likely to have been deliberate campfires. In his study, Rowlett used
thermoluminescent dating, an archeological dating method by which the age of material
can determined by how much background radioactivity it has captured over its lifespan,
and which is useful for up to eight hundred thousand years (Park, 1999). This method is
especially useful in cases like this one, when the material being dated has been heated,
because high temperatures release the signs of previous background radioactivity. Rowlett
determined that the material surrounding at least four of the lenses being studied
contained less signs of background radioactive energy than the surrounding material,
meaning that their cause was certainly of thermal origin, ruling out fungi or mineral
deposits. Rowlett also examined the lenses using a technique called phytolith analysis,
and determined that these longdead fires of history had burned mostly of palm wood, as
well as other grass and wood (McCrone, 2000). Adding support for these ancient fires,
Randy Bellomo examined the earth around the supposed campfires and found that it
showed crystalline melting patterns congruent with that of a campfire, which burns near
400°C, rather than that of a bushfire, which burns around 100°C. Then, using
archaeomagnitism, Bellomo discovered that the lenses were habituallyused campfires
and not random occurrences, as indicated by the mismatched iron orientations in the
surrounding soil (McCrone, 2000). It would seem that these “lenses” of soil were
certainly campfires of late, dating back to 1.6 million years ago, but could purposeful fire
evidence be found elsewhere?
Last April, this question was answered by Brian Ludwig of Rutgers University.
After studying forty thousand pieces of flint tool artifacts, ranging from 1 to 2.5 million
years old, from sites throughout Africa, Ludwig found some surprising results. When
rocks have been exposed to heat, they develop telltale signs of heat exposure, in the form
of observable “potlid fractures”. After studying his tool artifacts, Ludwig discovered that
the artifacts he was studying started to show these small fractures only after about 1.6
million years (McCrone, 2000). This finding suggests that by that time, H. erectus was
not only using campfires regularly, but also hunting and possibly even cooking tools. This
is not to say that the “big bang” theory of human mental evolution should be discarded.
Clive Gamble of the University of Southampton argues that fire use does not necessary
precipicate or require symbolic language or advanced intellectual abilities. It is unlikely,
argues Gamble, that the campfires of these early hominids had anything to do with
community or social gathering (McCrone, 2000). Fire could have simply been a means
for survival which our ancestors used to ward off carnivores and diseasespreading
insects, provide warmth, and perhaps even for cooking. Chimpanzees have been shown to
adopt social behaviors over time, such as salting their food, and to pass this behavior on
through the generations. It doesn’t take a leap of faith to assume that H. erectus passed on
fire in much this same way.
While nowhere near over, the battle over where to place that first spark is certainly
moving towards the more distant past, due to a few recent reports by leading
anthropologists. If nothing else, the investigation into the origins of fire use has taught us
more about our ancient ancestors, providing us with insights into how they lived. Perhaps
with future archeological finds and the application of more accurate dating methods, we
will be able to determine when exactly fire made its first appearance, but until then, it is
safe to assume fire was not confined to modern humans. No matter when it first occurred,
one can imagine that this first successful spark was met with an enormous sense of pride,
wonder, and happiness.
References
McCrone, J. (2000, May). Fired Up: Theory on when prehistoric man first used fire.
New Scientist, 166, 30.
Park, M. A. (1999). Biological Anthropology. Mountain View, Calif.: Mayfield
Publishing Company.