Long before the advent of electricity and refrigerators, people preserved meat using smoke. According to new research from scientists at Tel Aviv University in Israel, this practice dates back nearly two million years. Moreover, it may have been a primary reason our ancestors learned to make fire.
In this new study, paleoanthropologist Miki Ben-Dor and archaeologist Ran Barkai built upon their previous work linking human evolution to hunting large animals and the gradual decrease in the size of these animals over time.
The researchers noted that while the emergence of fire is closely tied to early humans, it required significant time and effort to ignite and maintain. The benefits of preserving meat could have been a key reason justifying the time and energy spent, as reported by Science Alert.
What Did the Scientists Discover?
During their research, the scientific 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.
The process of preparing to ignite a fire, actually starting it, and keeping it going for extended periods demanded considerable effort. To justify this effort, our ancestors needed a “compelling, energy-efficient motive,” Ben-Dor explained.
The researchers proposed a new hypothesis regarding this motive. They observed that wherever they found evidence of fires, there were also remains of large animals. The scientists calculated the energy benefits of immediately cooking and consuming the meat from this large game compared to preserving it.
As a result, they found substantial evidence that these fires were not only lit for warmth or for immediate cooking of 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 want to feast on this 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.
Researchers found that elephant meat could feed dozens of people for up to three months. These millions of calories needed to be preserved to “recoup the investment in hunting.”
According to Barkai, the study offered “a new understanding of the factors that prompted ancient people to start using fire.”
It is likely that when fire was created with such a broad purpose, it was also sometimes used for immediate cooking “with zero marginal energy costs,” the scientists noted.
The results of the study were published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition.