2017/07/27 by Dennis Sandgathe, Francesco Berna · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies #Prehistory #Archaeology #History #Geography #Genus #Resource (disambiguation) #Ecology #Biology #Computer science
paper · doi:10.1086/691424
openalex publication_date 2017/07/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07
Employing fire as an adaptive aid represents one of the most important technological developments in the course of hominin evolution, and, not surprisingly, research into the prehistoric use of fire has a long history. Over the last decade or so there has been a notable increase in research. Some people have continued to focus on better understanding of the timing of the beginning of fire use, but some have also been trying to understand something of its role in the evolution of the genus Homo. In the fall of 2015 a symposium was held in Portugal that brought together 17 researchers who have contributed significantly in recent years to this subject. These contributions include improving the type and quality of archaeological and ethnoarchaeological data, collecting and interpreting fire residue data from archaeological sites from various time periods and regions, and developing models of fire as an ecological resource and the role of cooking in hominin evolution. A result of the symposium was the recognition of the need to focus less on data from individual sites and more on the broader role of fire in hominin adaptations and to concentrate more on developing the analytical methods and skills to confidently interpret what we see in the archaeological record.