Talk:Control of fire by early humans

message: What evidence is there for the statement Cooked foods provide humans with proteins  and carbohydrates ?
All omnivorous mammals obtain proteins  and carbohydrates (and fats) from their diet very successfully. If they didn't they wouldn't survive. What fire and thus cooking did was to break down physically tough protein and carbohydrate making the food easier to eat and digest and also much quicker to eat and digest (and probably tastier). It has been suggested (although I doubt I can find the reference) that freeing up time spent eating was one enabling factor for the development of the human brain and thus the principal key attribute of human-kind. 
The later paragraph on Changes to diet partially explores this and is inconsistent with the earlier sentence.
I propose that this sentence is changed to reflect the proper impact of cooking on food and the later section expanded. Any objections?  Velela  Velela Talk   22:48, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Fire and nutrition

message: There were significant errors in a recent series of sentences I was forced to delete. 1 such sentence claimed that cooking made meat more digestible. In fact, studies have shown the exact, showing that meat protein is rendered LESS digestible by cooking:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism#Potential_harmful_effects_of_cooked_foods_and_cooking
Then there was the claim that cooking kills all parasites; Toxoplasmosis is a parasite that is not so easily destroyed by cooking, given that 1/3 of the world's population has it.Loki0115 5th december
:The sources provided in the article state the exact opposite of what you are proscribing. If you are trying to promote a raw food lifestyle, then you are most definitely violating WP:FRINGE. I have undone your edits, but kept the counterpoint section you added.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:39, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Please sign your comments properly. Also, Wrangham's points are included because they support the general topic of this page. Arguments against the role of cooking in human evolution don't quite fit here and only really serve to say "Wrangham might not be right". But it's been a while since I've done any actual research into the matter of anthropology like this.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Also, Richard Wrangham has an article and researches the invention of cooking, so mentioning him inline is appropriate. It's naming researchers inline who don't have articles that I object to. Abductive (reasoning) 12:54, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

text: A good point. But even so, we should focus on what fire did to contribute to human evolution. Not saying eating raw food was better.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:14, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

text: Should be something like "easier to digest proteins and carbohydrates". And cooking is at least a use of fire.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Grave errors 

message: One of the major cites in the beginning of the article comes from an interesting website (dieoff.org), but it doesn't seem to take a scholarly approach to the question of this article itself, which is human ancestor fire control, rather the dieoff.org articles are all about peak energy and civilization collapse risks. The Price article only mentions control of fire in passing with no intention of being used as a source for information about fire control. Surely there must be actual anthropologists that have published meta-analysis of fire control evidence to provide a more informative, scholarly, overview. Am I wrong that this would be an improvement? If not then I'll seek some out. 66.108.199.84 (talk) 18:46, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The Dieoff.org site is being used because they have published a scientific paper which is what is being used as the source. It is only a mention in passing, but it serves the purpose for the time being.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:47, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Understood. However, the Price article is from 1995 and it cites a paper from 1986 in passing to support fire 400,000 years ago. I'm going to seek out more recent information that's focused on the subject of the article. 66.108.199.84 (talk) 17:53, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: There are definitely more contemporary publications. It was chosen for its ease of access.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 19:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  source quality? 

message: I just noticed a major error in that last paragraph. Loring Brace, is claimed to favour the idea that cooking led to bigger brains in the last 200,000 years. However, I came across a relevant paragraph in an interview of Wrangham which shows that Loring Brace is actually completely opposed to the notion that cooking led to bigger brains:-
"The problem with his idea: proof is slim that any human could control fire that far back. Other researchers believe cooking did not occur until perhaps only 500,000 years ago. Consistent signs of cooking came even later, when Neandertals were coping with an ice age. “They developed earth oven cookery,” says C. Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. “And that only goes back a couple hundred thousand years.” He and others postulate that the introduction of energy-rich, softer animal products, not cooking, was what led to H. erectus’s bigger brain and smaller teeth." taken from:-
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains
Kindly remove the claim re Loring Brace, under the circumstances. I will, at a later stage, include mention of studies showing that cooking makes proteins in meat less digestible, in line with whatamidoing suggested. Loki0115 (talk) 21:46, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I may have written it wrong, but Brace states that the cookware is too late in the line to affect brain development. I will rephrase it. And also, is that point about meat being less digestible important to the discussion of human control of fire, or are you just trying to find counterpoints to the discussion of cooking in relation to fire?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 23:09, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: So far, the claims re cooking making proteins more digestible were stated as absolute fact, even though this is heavily disputed. Therefore it is necessary to provide data which shows that there is disagreement here to avoid readers drawing a false conclusion re the solidity of the data. Also, for obvious reasons, data on any claimed benefits of cooking clearly belong in the cooking section, not in this page, as control of fire is a more general subject. Plus, if you claim that mentioning the benefits of cooking is important to the issue of the control of fire, then, clearly, it is also perfectly valid to include similiar data on the disadvantages of cooking, how it led to malocclusion etc.Loki0115 (talk) 23:53, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Loki0115 (talk) 23:45, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, the article is supposed to be in part about cooking. Everything you have been suggesting is that we put focus on the consumption of raw foods and remove any information concerning Wrangham's cooking hypothesis. There should be a middle ground.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 00:11, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Both of your above claims are incorrect, to put it mildly. As I stated before, I have not suggested writing about the consumption of raw foods, merely that if info on the benefits of cooking are provided, that info on the disadvantages of cooking should be provided as well, for balance. This per se has nothing to do with the consumption of raw foods, but everything to do with the effects of consumption of cooked foods. As for the Wrangham claim, again, I have never suggested removing all info concerning Wrangham's cooking hypothesis, I merely have made it clear that since Wrangham's views are repeatedly mentioned in online articles as being merely fringe views definitely not held by most other anthropologists, that the opposing mainstream view should be mentioned as well, in addition to Wrangham's claims. So far, a lot of undue weight has been given to Richard Wrangham on this and other pages, in some cases making it misguidedly seem as though Wrangham's views were incontrovertible facts, and this conflicts with wikipedia policy.Loki0115 (talk) 10:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It just does not make sense to me to discuss the deleterious aspects of cooking on a page that's about the use of fire.—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 20:44, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, you are trying to make claims that cooking contributed to human evolution or made human lives easier re digestion etc. - fair enough. But then it is necessary, for balance reasons, to include info on how cooking   hindered human evolution and made human lives more difficult re digestion etc. I mean, either cooking is considered part of the control of fire subject(in which case info on the positive and negative aspects of cooking must be included to avoid bias/undue weight) or it isn't considered part of that page, in which case all the pro-cooking and anti-cooking data should be removed altogether. To be quite honest, I tend to the latter view as the issue of the control of fire is a much larger subject than just cooking. Cooking already has its own wikipedia page(in which, incidentally, both the positive and negative aspects of cooking are extensively discussed). Control of fire should only really address things like the discovery of fire, the range in which it is said to have occurred, evidence thereof, how strong or shaky it is etc.whatamidoing seems to be of a different opinion, though, and wants both pro-cooking and anti-cooking data included.
Well, it seems I am away for a month. However, in some weeks, i will return to address a number of the glaring inconsistencies in the last part of the article.Loki0115 (talk) 21:45, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: But do you have anything that says it hindered human evolution, or do you just have information that cooking food doesn't make it easier to digest?—Ryūlóng (竜龙) 22:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

text: As Ryulong points out, unless this material comes from research on human evolution, to add it would violate NOR.  This article must be based on sources by researchers on the topic - physical anthropologists and archeologists for the most part. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 19:03, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

text: Again, this article is in part about cooking. So it does not make sense to say "cooking bad, raw good".—Ryulong (竜龙) 19:44, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not remotely valid an assumption. Either one should include data on how cooking is good and cooking is bad as regards human evolution, or one should not include any data at all on the benefits or disadvantages of cooking re evolution. To do other than that would inevitably involve a great deal of bias and seriously violate wikipedia guidelines. And, like I made clear a dozen times before(!), this is NOT an issue of cooked versus raw, but on the effects, positive or negative, of cooking on human evolution.Loki0115 (talk) 20:20, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: But do you have articles that put forward evidence that cooking negatively affected the path of human evolution? Or do you merely have raw foodist publications that say "cooking bad, raw good" and people who disagree with Wrangham's claims?—Ryulong (竜龙) 20:22, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, of course. The article I previously cited comes from New Scientist magazine http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7035-human-dental-chaos-linked-to-evolution-of-cooking.html , and New Scientist , of course, not a raw foodist publication, and the article covers evidence that cooking negatively affected human evolution. It also refers to a study by the anthropologist Peter Lucas who has written some books on the subject as well.Loki0115 (talk) 20:49, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: That's not a peer-reviewed publication.—Ryulong (竜龙) 22:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Irrelevant, really. The article comes from an eminent UK Science-oriented magazine, it refers to one of Peter Lucas'  studies and there are various book-chapters by the same man in peer-reviewed books, and mentions the viewpoints of 2 anthropologists. Oh, here is a peer-reviewed thesis on human dentition in the Paleolithic, overall done By Ungar, but also with a chapter by Peter Lucas re the evolution of human dentition in the Palaeolithic era. Loki0115 (talk) 07:43, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: It's been incorporated.—Ryulong (竜龙) 07:56, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. I have added an extra point made by Lucas and others that cooking led to teeth growing smaller. Loki0115 (talk) 14:25, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, but please indent your comments. Treat it like a threaded comment tree.—Ryulong (竜龙) 18:57, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Brace

message: Maybe it's just me, but the paper by Suzana Herculano-Houzel seems to contain some flawed reasoning.
:Humans have more brain neurons than any other primate, about 86 billion, on average.
:If a primate could consistently feed at the estimated limit of 10 h/d, it would still be limited to a body of 95.2 kg to afford a relative brain size of 2% (in which case, its brain would have 108 billion neurons).
:*The calculations are based on 10 primate species, their average weight, number of neurons, estimated energy usage and observed feeding times. This resulted in a formula that gives the feeding time in function of weight and brain size. 
::For the four largest species, the observed and calculated times correspond quite well, although observed values are always lower than predicted. This is presented as somehow confirming the validity of the model. 
::However, looking at all ten species, there are two who have more neurons than the next (larger) primate on the list. They are also the two where the formula performs worst. For the common squirrel monkey the predicted value was 2.6 times the observed value (3h30m vs 1h20m), for the Tufted Capuchin the result was 1.4 times the observed value. As far as disproportionately large brains is concerned, the common squirrel monkey would be the best example with its 3.2 billion neurons and body weight of 0.72 kg (other species: 0.6 billion and 0.37 kg; 1.5 billion and 0.78 kg; 3.8 billion and 3.1 kg; 3.2 billion and 4.5 kg; 3.8 billion and 5.3 kg..), and it's obvious that for such cases the formula is hopelessly inaccurate.  
:Although the earlier addition of raw meat to the diet of earlier hominins may also have contributed to increase its caloric content, raw meat is difficult to chew and ingest, whereas  cooked meat is easier to chew and has a higher caloric yield.
:*Is there any evidence that the time difference between chewing and ingesting uncooked versus cooked meat is larger than the time it takes to build a fire and cooking the meat first?? 
:Finally, cooking food would not explain how they achieved the control of fire, something that likely requires a large brain in the first place. 
Couldn't find any in-depth reviews of the paper, but Wrangham has commented that the paper fails to take changes in the diet (more meat) into account.  Ssscienccce (talk) 03:14, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Raw Food Not Enough to Feed Big Brains" source 

message: I removed a video of what appears to be a Dutch man in some clothing of a past era starting a fire with a piece of flint and a steel implement around his fingers. Nothing in the article suggests that the "early humans" had pieces of steel that they used with pieces of flint to start fires, so it seems anachronistic, irrelevant and misleading. Maybe there was a meteorite somewhere and some cavemen tore off pieces of it to use starting fires, but where is the ref? And how common could it have been? A video of someone starting a fire with a bow drill and wood might be useful, if there is any source suggesting that this was a method used by "early humans."  Edison (talk) 15:04, 6 August 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Flint and steel

message: According to the article here on Wikipedia, there's no evidence that the sentinelese people is able of producing fire. Could this be a proof that the homo sapiens developed the ability to control fire much later than other ominids? --79.7.35.154 (talk) 02:46, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: The Sentinelese are examples of modern humans (even though they are culturally behind the rest of the world) are therefore not covered by this article.—Ryulong (琉竜) 04:08, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Sentinelese people

message: I just read this article and found it a bit disturbing that time is given in Mya and that there are a number of technical terms like „TL dating" which are not explained. Would it be possible to change units and add some explanations to make the text more accessible for non-experts?Lucentcalendar (talk) 08:23, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm confused by the use of Mya. I have to assume it's the term used by the experts in this and related fields. However, unless the use of it provides a helpful use to the lay-reader, I really think using years for the relevant units of time would be much preferred. If Mya is to be kept, a very short explanation as to why this unit is used could be included in the article to help our readers. --bodnotbod (talk) 13:39, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text:  ... to add... The wikilink to Mya didn't appear to be working as intended, so I hope I've fixed that now, which  should help. I feel silly now that I didn't realise that it simply means "million years ago". Now I have to wonder if I'm just a lot more dense than the average reader will be or whether Mya is likely to confuse the majority. --bodnotbod (talk) 13:46, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Abbreviations and unusual units of time 

message: That wierd sentence about 'small less small tough' needs to change. I'd do it, but I don't want to mess up the meaning.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.15.168.179 (talk) 22:53, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gibberish at the end 

message: "Recent findings strongly support that the earliest controlled use of fire took place in Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa,1.0 Mya.[4]"
That sentence implies that we think literally the first time any human controlled fire was in that specific cave at that specific date, which is obviously silly. The chances that the specific first time fire was controlled would leave evidence for us to find are remote. Instead, this sentence should say that the earliest evidence of controlled fire was found in that cave, and it dates back to approx. 1.0Mya. Leperflesh (talk) 06:44, 18 November 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Incorrectly implied accuracy 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: People looking at the history of the article may note that I have put an inline "not in reference given" tag. I just want to do my best to inform later editors and readers that I only checked one particular reference, so it is certainly not to be thought that I checked the references throughout and found the rest to be OK. Also note that if a reference text follows my comment here (as it does at the time of writing) it must relate to something further up the talk page and is not related to my message here. --bodnotbod (talk) 15:26, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Notification that I only checked one of the references (and found it wanting)

message: We have a reference that's used 17 times:
James, Steven R. (February 1989). "Hominid Use of Fire in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene: A Review of the Evidence" (PDF). Current Anthropology. University of Chicago Press. 30 (1): 1–26. doi:10.1086/203705. Retrieved 2012-04-04.
It seems a little old. I plan to replace it with better ones as the opportunity arises.
Zyxwv99 (talk) 05:27, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Still 16 times. Suggested reading: doi:10.1073/pnas.2101108118. --Rainald62 (talk) 20:33, 22 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Replacing references 

message: In the section "Control of fire", there is an uncited sentence that seems accidentally off to me:
One was a change in habitat, from dense forest, where wildfires were rare and potentially catastrophic, to savanna (mixed grass/woodland) where wildfires were very rare and of lower intensity
My problem is that clearly there is an attempt at parallelism but the parallelism is broken:
* Dense forest
** wildfires rare
** wildfires potentially catastrophic
* Savanna
** wildfires very rare
** wildfires of lower intensity
If the environmental change were as important as it claims to give Homo erectus experience with fire, I'd expect wildfires to be more common in the savanna, not more rare.  Are savannas less wildfire-prone than dense forests? Is this substantiated somewhere?
--73.128.71.14 (talk) 01:27, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. Dense forests are already prone to wildfire, and grasslands (particularly dry savanna grass) is highly susceptible to wildfire, so early human interactions with fire would have increased rather than decreased. Also, didn't a major expansion of grasslands in lower latitudes occur 1 to 2 mya during the ice ages?   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  18:15, 18 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Uncited frequency of wildfires in a savanna vs. in a dense forest 

message: Evidence is unfolding that early humans' use of fire included accelerating the fire regime on a landscape scale. Developments related to landscape-scale fire management are happening in geology (patterns of fire-induced magnetic susceptibility on a landscape scale), cultural anthropology (charcoal enrichment on a landscape scale means people organizing culture around fire-regime acceleration), and soil science (dawning recognition of fire as a soil-forming factor in chernozems as evidenced by charcoal enrichment at levels unanticipated by soil carbon modeling). Paleorthid (talk) 16:40, 29 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Landscape scale fires started by early humans were intentional 

message: Female voice 41.223.119.44 (talk) 19:48, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  How fire was made 

message: :Evidence for the "microscopic traces of wood ash" as controlled use of fire by Homo erectus, beginning roughly 1 million years ago, has wide scholarly support.
"Has wide scholarly support" but the citation on both is one site, which is referred to by both papers. You'd have to source multiple sites in order to come to "wide scholarly support."
--KimYunmi (talk) 13:34, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Overstatement