During which time period in pre-history did Homo Sapiens make the transition from eating raw, to cooked foods?

Question

My understanding is that early campfires were probably used more for warmth, as there is little evidence of cooked residues & debris, such as unedible bones in the earliest excavations...

Thank you for your thorough follow through Berickf, I'd love to see the Moldava map posted, if you don't mind...

Answer 1

Alright, let me clarify this topic. The actual process of "cooking" is hard to determine with certainty at the earliest fire sites. I have participated in fire research in Koobi Fora. Originally Randy Bellamo did some interesting actualistic studies by conducting controlled burns to determine the temperatures in bush fires versus camp fires so that relative chemical changes in the soil upon which the fire was placed could be determined. Since bush fires quickly traverse the terrain where as a controlled fire sits in one place for a long time it was found that there were definite distinctions in how that effected the soil chemistry. The reason why this study was being done was because some apparent fire sites had been found that were dated to 1.6 mya and low and behold the chemical analysis determined that their chemical composition was that of a deliberate slow extended fire meaning that it was controlled and was having consumables added to it to keep it going for long enough to create the temperatures neccessary for the changes to occur in the chemical composition of the soil underneath. So, check, Homo erectus was controlling fire at 1.6 mya. Some similar sites have since been found during a dig that I was involved in that would further push this date back to closer to 1.8mya, but the chemical data has not been reported yet. So we know the earliest evidence of fire, but we still do not know if cooking was taking place here because there was no evidence of charred fossil remains. If they were cooking then they were utilizing all bone remains for some other purpose or else placing them so precisely in the fires that they were completely consumed (possibly to avoid attracting scavengers to their campsites). One thing that we do know is that within these "fire pits" we were finding small stone fragments of stone that was not always present in the surrounding areas and that these stone fragments sometimes had evidence of percussive strikes commonly seen in the construction of stone tools. What this means is it appears that their stone tools were being placed into the fire... early rotisserie? Not likely... instead it appears that the fire was being used to temper these stone tools so that they would be more durable in everyday use. With regard to cooking we would love to have found some petrified bones that showed evidence of charring, but nothing of this sort has yet to be found to represent the 1.6-1.8mya time frame. The earliest site where such chared bones has been found is Swartkrans Cave in S. Africa where antelope, zebra, warthog and even charred baboon bones have been found, but this site is dated with the range 1.0-1.5mya, which is a relatively large time range given that from present day this represents a 33% difference! The researchers at the S. African site also conducted actualistic studies and determined that these charred bones were indeed caused by prolonged exposure to fire and concluded that in all probability they were the result of hominids and not from natural fires. This was also assisted by the presence of cut marks to strengthen their case. Anyways, irregardless of when we started to cook exactly, this gives you at least a pretty good idea of when fire and then cooking came onto the scene!
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Rearding your additional details. I already covered that the earliest fires were not neccessarily used for cooking, but were definitely used for tempering their tools. The earliest evidence of cooking (ie charred bone fossils) that has been found so far is in S. Africa dating between 1.0-1.5mya. And based on actualistic studies these bones were exposed to fire for a long period meaning that S. African Homo erectus WERE cooking 1.0-1.5mya.

OK, Expansion of Homo sapiens into Europe was accompanied with the development of the Upper paleolithic modifications. http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x132/kenya_agro/UpperPaleolithicmodifications.jpg As you can see these modifications began around 45,000 ya so they were with Homo sapiens/Cro Magnon right from the start when they entered Europe. As these Homo sapiens moved more Northwards you can see how they adopted to their new environment with in these clippings. http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x132/kenya_agro/UpperPaleolithicinN.Europe1.jpg http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x132/kenya_agro/UpperPaleolithicinN.Europe2.jpg This description covers Homo sapiens sites from Czech republic to Moscow. The Moldova site is close o present day Moscow. http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x132/kenya_agro/Moldova.jpg I feel very comfortable that this group of people did indeed use fire to make charcoal to use in their artistic work, for tempering or modifying iems that they were constructing, for social/family gatherings, to keep warm and for cooking.

There are many references to the "neanderthal borrowing ideas and technologies from the moderns". One such technology that is often sighted is the neanderthals ability to, even though they were primarily of the mousterian tool kit, they were able to copy much of the tool set of the upper paleolithic. Now I have sat down and tried making tools myself, and even using the real deal as models for myself it took me many hours to even start to be able to knock big flakes off reliably. I was trying to reconstruct tools from closer to 2mya, so if the neanderthal were able to copy tools from 40,000 ya then I have to give them kudos, and if they could copy those tools I have no doubt that they could have copied fire as well, if they did not already posses it themselves. Although, it is my belief that Neanderthal had it right from the get go seeing as their predecessors, heidlebergensis had it, and again I'll state that the reason why texts seem to overlook the aspect of cooking in these populations is that at this point it is just implied because it was a skill that had been in play for so long now that it no longer seems noteworthy of mentioning it.

Answer 2

From my limited research looking into when fire was used by humans I found that fire use by humanoids predates homo sapiens.
http://www.ushistory.org/civ/2d.asp makes the claim :The earliest evidence found in Swartkrans, South Africa and at Chesowanja, Kenya Terra and Amata, France suggests that fire was first used in stone hearths about 1.5 million years ago.

That predates homo sapiens.

Answer 3

There is and probably ever be, no evidence when fire was found. It may have been before 1,2,3 million BC and used as a place for people to congregate for protection from animals, for warmth, maybe they took it with them IE: movie "Fire."
Someone accidentally toss some animal into the fire or, an animal was hit by lightening and burned, but, we have no evident when his all happen.

Answer 4

It was pre Homo sapiens. It probably occurred a million years ago in erectus or at least 400,000 years ago in Heidelbergensis

Answer 5

Most scientists think this transition was during the Coleman years, but there are a few who feel it occurred in the Early Microwave era.

Answer 6

At the discovery of fire... Some place it at 1.5million years, while others are making it at about 400k... So, it means that the homosapiens was already eating cooked meat at the time of its apparition (dated at about 200k).

Answer 7

i don't know

it must have been maybe 50K years ago

Answer 8

when the discovered fire...

Answer 9

der......... when we discovered matches?