Study Finds Earliest Evidence of Cooking (2024)

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Study Finds Earliest Evidence of Cooking? ›

A recent study found what could be the earliest known evidence of ancient cooking: the leftovers of a fish dinner from 780,000 years ago. Cooking helped change our ancestors. It helped fuel our evolution and gave us bigger brains.

Scientists have found the earliest known evidence of cooking at an archaeological site in Israel. The shift from eating raw to cooked food was a dramatic turning point in human evolution, and the discovery has suggested prehistoric humans were able to deliberately make fires to cook food at least 780,000 years ago.

Summary: The remains of a huge carp fish mark the earliest signs of cooking by prehistoric human to 780,000 years ago, predating the available data by some 600,000 years, according to researchers.

A new study, published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, suggests that early humans first cooked food around 780,000 years ago. Before now, the earliest evidence of cooked food was around 170,000 years ago, with early hom*o sapiens and Neanderthals using fire to cook vegetables and meat.

The oldest evidence (via heated fish teeth from a deep cave) of controlled use of fire to cook food by archaic humans was dated to ~780,000 years ago. Anthropologists think that widespread cooking fires began about 250,000 years ago when hearths first appeared.

A recent study found what could be the earliest known evidence of ancient cooking: the leftovers of a fish dinner from 780,000 years ago. Cooking helped change our ancestors. It helped fuel our evolution and gave us bigger brains.

The diet of the earliest hominins was probably somewhat similar to the diet of modern chimpanzees: omnivorous, including large quantities of fruit, leaves, flowers, bark, insects and meat (e.g., Andrews & Martin 1991; Milton 1999; Watts 2008).

hom*o antecessor, seen by some researchers as the last common ancestor of both Neanderthals and us hom*o sapiens, did eat raw meat, according to dental plaque analysis. Forensic evidence also reveals that this primitive ancestor was a cannibal who even preyed on infants and children.

For many people, the first step they think of when it comes to cooking is prepping all of the ingredients. Chopping all the vegetables, preparing the protein, maybe even measuring out the dry and liquid ingredients.

Which is the oldest method of cooking? ›

Answer: The oldest form of cooking is basically fire-roasting and, specifically, open fire cooking. The earliest forms of open-fired cooking would have consisted of placing food ingredients straight into a fire. Yep, right into the ashes!

Drying is the oldest method of food preservation. This method reduces water activity which prevents bacterial growth. Sun and wind are both used for drying.

The past simple form of 'cook' is 'cooked.

In order to cook food, our distant ancestors had to learn how to use fire. The earliest known fire pits, or hearths, are about 800,000 years old.

In the earliest era of the Stone Age, the Paleolithic diet consisted of raw meat and fish. Before humans learned how to create fire and use it to cook food, the animals were eaten raw. Raw meat was consumed for approximately the first one million years of human existence.

The history of three meals a day

In ancient times, people usually ate one daily meal that was considered unique and abundant to any other time for eating. For example, the ancient Romans consumed only one meal around midday, considering it a healthy choice and the only one able to guarantee good digestion.

Some scientists estimate our early human cousins may have been using fire to cook their food almost 2 million years ago, long before hom*o sapiens showed up. And a recent study found what could be the earliest known evidence of this rudimentary cooking: the leftovers of a roasted carp dinner from 780,000 years ago.

Before hom*o sapiens, hom*o erectus had already spread throughout Africa and non-Arctic Eurasia by about one million years ago. The oldest known evidence for anatomically modern humans (as of 2017) are fossils found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dated about 360,000 years old.

Until agriculture was developed around 10,000 years ago, all humans got their food by hunting, gathering, and fishing.

Answer: The oldest form of cooking is basically fire-roasting and, specifically, open fire cooking. The earliest forms of open-fired cooking would have consisted of placing food ingredients straight into a fire. Yep, right into the ashes!