Taming Fire

Have you ever wonder when did we start to use fire and why we have it today? Well thanks to science we can figure out that answer out. Playing with fire is dangerous and it still is today, although back in the past one person was so interested in fire that he tried to see what he can do with it and they found out ways of keeping them warm and cooking food which made it easier to eat. There’s no doubt that natural occurring fire were scary to them but when some animals die other animals can eat it. The idea we have it that we have been using fire for 250,000. We know this because we find hearths. Hearths are the reaming of a fire place and it can commonly be identified with a circle of rocks, around it we usually find charred bones and stone tools. Another way to see if there was a fire is that we can check for changes in the bone chemicals because a contained fire is hotter than a wildfire and this method suggest that we have been using fire for 1,000,000. A cave in Swartkrans has animals remains and when they examined the bones it shows that it was in a contenting fire but those people who inhabited the cave didn’t know how to start a fire so they would have to take wood and light it from a naturally occurring fire and run back. These sounds crazy but imagine the improvements for them they could cook and keep warm. The use of fire is maybe why they migrated from Africa to colder places like Europe. This shows that our ancestors observed and tried to understand it which today’s scientists do!

"Taming Fire, The First Scientist." Odyssey: adventures in Science Oct. 2009: 29-30. Print.