Researchers consider cooking to be an incredibly important factor in human evolution. It allowed our ancestors to unlock additional calories necessary for brain growth and development.
So, when was cooking invented? The exact date remains unknown, but scientists suggest that humans have been preparing food for at least 50,000 years, and possibly even 2 million years ago. This information comes from experts in two scientific fields: archaeology and biology.
One of the archaeological pieces of evidence for early culinary attempts is the cooked starch grains found in dental calculus or hardened plaque. Richard Wrangham, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University and author of the book “Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human,” noted that starch was found in teeth that are 50,000 years old.
However, the evidence discovered prior to this is less clear-cut. Typically, scientists have searched for signs that our ancestors controlled fire. Yet, remnants of controlled fire do not always indicate cooking. Our ancestors might have used fire for warmth or tool-making, as reported by Live Science.
“Evidence of fires is present throughout the archaeological record. But the challenge is distinguishing whether it was controlled fire,” said Bethan Linscott, a geoarchaeologist from the University of Oxford.
According to her, one of the key aspects in searching for evidence of fire control is the structure of the burn. This could be stones arranged around a hearth, with some ash in the center. Alternatively, phytoliths (silica structures left behind by long-dead plants) and charred objects may also be indicators. Researchers have found such artifacts all over our planet, left behind even before the appearance of Homo sapiens. This suggests that early hominins also used fire. A team studying the Qesem Cave in Israel discovered evidence of a hearth dating back 300,000 years alongside remains of processed animals. In a cave in Suffolk County, England, there are remnants of a hearth that is 400,000 years old, where charred bones and flint were found. Looking even further back in time, ash found in the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa led scientists to suspect that cooking may have occurred as far back as 1 million years ago. Moreover, there is even evidence of controlled fire use in Kenya 1.6 million years ago.
Did Cooking Begin with Homo erectus?
While working at a site called Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel, researchers uncovered compelling evidence of cooking that dates back 780,000 years. This includes stone circles for hearths and heated fish bones.
Biological evidence of the history of cooking, particularly its beginnings, can be seen in the evolution of the human body. “As a species, we differ from all other species on Earth because we are biologically adapted to consuming cooked food,” noted Professor Wrangham. He believes that early hominins learned to process food over fire long before modern humans appeared.
The first hominin to have body proportions that resembled humans more than primates was Homo erectus. Some of the physiological traits characteristic of this species suggest that they could have been the first primitive cooks. One of the main differences between humans and primates is the size of the intestines. Since cooking food requires less effort for digestion, our intestines are smaller than theirs.
That’s why we have relatively flat stomachs, unlike a monkey’s belly, “especially after it has eaten well,” said Professor Wrangham. According to him, to accommodate their larger intestines, primates have wide pelvises and protruding ribs. Our human ancestors lost these characteristics about two million years ago.
The second sign of evolutionary adaptation to dietary changes is the reduction in the size of molars. The fact is that food became easier to chew as it softened. This change occurred around the same time.
However, the idea that Homo erectus individuals were the first cooks on Earth remains a topic of debate in the scientific community. “Many people are working on this question, and in my opinion, it will continue for a long time,” believes Bethan Linscott.