My science feeds are abuzz with the story behind an article published this month of November 2022 in _Nature Ecology & Evolution_ that redates a human invention — deliberate cooking of food — to 780,000 years ago, long before Homo sapiens evolved.
The species Homo erectus (see first image) is the likeliest human ancestor that may have prepared slow-cooked fish at the ancient settlement of Gesher Benot Ya’aquov located in Israel’s northern Jordan river valley.
The way this hypothesis was tested is really interesting — scientists had found skeletal remains of fish like the Jordan himri (third image) at this old settlement, and knew that slow-cooking fish would have resulted in softer bones and an easier-to-digest fish. So they used X-ray diffraction to look at the sizes of crystals found in the tooth enamel. The upshot is that the fish in question had not been directly exposed to fire — their results contrasted with teeth crystals from other fish from long ago, and paralleled the way crystals form in slow-cooking reproductions.
While not conclusive, this study is one of many that suggests the mental capacity of our Homo erectus relatives (Homo sapiens evolved from a common ancestor) was much greater than had been previously imagined.e)
Source: Sci.news “Homo erectus had stocky body shape” July 2020; New Scientist, “Early humans may have cooked fish in ovens 780,000 years ago” Christa Lesté-Lasserre, Nov 14, 2022
