Control of Fire in the Paleolithic

2017/05/25 by Richard Wrangham, Richard W. Wrangham · 148 citations
Environmental Science · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Archaeology #Early Pleistocene #Geography #History #Homo sapiens #Human evolution #Law #Middle Paleolithic #Obligation #Pleistocene #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Political science #Primate Behavior and Ecology #Upper Paleolithic #Wildlife Ecology and Conservation

paper · open access · doi:10.1086/692113

published in Current Anthropology 58(S16), S303-S313 (University of Chicago Press)

openalex publication_date 2017/05/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30

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.

Citations

• Body Size, Body Shape, and the Circumscription of the Genus Homo

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