The Early Humans Were Smarter Than We Thought

Posted by Dr. Gopal Unnikrishna Kurup

 The Early Humans Were Smarter Than We Thought
 

The early human grandpa, Homo Erectus, was infact brilliant according to the then prevalent standards, it seems, according to new studies on his fire usage.. Fire use requires long-term planning, group cooperation and inhibition. Early humans would have had to have been fairly clever to keep a fire going by cooperating, not stealing food or not stealing fire from other people

Traces of ash found in Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa suggest that at least some Homo erectus used fire as far back as 1 million years ago. Another site in Israel, Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, shows evidence of fire from around 800,000 years ago. While it's possible these ancient ancestors made fire from scratch, it's more likely they learned to harness flames from a lightning strike or other natural source, 

What minimum mental abilities would human ancestors need to regularly maintain fire? Quite a lot, it turns out. Lacking the ability to make fire from scratch, to keep fires going, Homo erectus needed long-range planning abilities far and above those needed for fashioning primitive stone tools or hunting prey. They would need to gather firewood several days before the fire might die, or anticipate gathering storms and protect fragile flames. Using fire also requires the self-control to avoid eating food until it's cooked, a test chimpanzees would fail abysmally. What's more, human ancestors would need fairly advanced social skills to make sure others didn't steal cooked food or a fire while its original tender was out gathering firewood, As a result, if Homo erectus tended fires 1 million years ago, it would suggest the early human ancestors were smarter than previously thought