The discovery of a large, two-meter-long, carp-like fish in Israel shows that humans were already capable of cooking their food around 780,000 years ago. Until now, the earliest known evidence was four times earlier, dating back about 170,000 years. It's clear that the ability to cook—to process food by controlling the temperature at which it is heated—must have emerged at some point in human evolutionary history. Scientists further agree that being able to "prepare food" in this way must have had a huge impact on both the evolution of the brain and the human body itself. But when exactly did humans begin cooking? The answer is unclear and has been the subject of much debate within the scientific community for decades. Some have even suggested that the increased brain size of Homo erectus, 1.8 million years ago, was directly related to the consumption of cooked food. However, very few prehistoric remains exist that demonstrate such activity. And those that do exist are widely scattered. But the discovery of this large fish with unmistakable signs of having been roasted has changed things. In fact, it shows that our ancestors, some 780,000 years ago, were already capable of processing food before ingesting it. The study, recently published in Nature Ecology, constitutes a veritable treasure trove of information on the long history of human evolution. Bones and Teeth The fish was found at the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov archaeological site by a team of Israeli researchers led by Irit Zohar, a scientist at the Steinhardt Museum at Tel Aviv University. There, scientists found some of its bones along with a large number of carp pharyngeal teeth, which these fish use to grind shells and other very hard foods. By studying the structure of the crystals that form the enamel of these teeth (which increase in size when exposed to heat), Zohar and her team were able to verify that the fish were exposed to temperatures suitable for cooking and not simply burned by a spontaneous fire. "This study," Zohar says, "demonstrates the enormous importance of fish in the lives of prehistoric humans, for their diet and economic stability." The discovery also helps reconstruct, for the first time, the fish population in the region. "The large number of fish remains found at the site," the researcher continues, "demonstrates their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques. These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for prehistoric humans' sustenance, but also illustrate those prehistoric humans' ability to control fire to cook food and their understanding of the benefits of cooking fish before eating it." “The fact that fish cooking is evident over such a long, uninterrupted period of settlement at the site,” says Naama Goren-Inbar, co-author of the research, “indicates a continuing tradition of cooking food. Gaining the skill required to cook food marks a significant evolutionary advance, as it provided an additional means of making optimal use of the available food resources. It’s even possible that cuisine wasn’t limited to fish, but also included various types of animals and plants.” MORE INFORMATION news No What if those who walked around Doñana weren’t Neanderthals? news No The oldest known ‘family’ discovered: a Neanderthal father with his daughter and several relatives In their article, the researchers suggest that the transition from eating raw to cooked foods was not only important for our development, but that fish could have played a fundamental role in human evolution. Omega-3 fatty acids, zinc, iodine, and other compounds common in fish are known to greatly contribute to brain development. In fact, the research team believes that freshwater areas, some of which had long since dried up, may have been crucial to the migration of early humans out of Africa.
