What distinguishes man from other animals? For some scholars, this is a tricky question that comes down to the fine control of a single earthly power: fire. British primatologist Richard W. Wrangham is a big supporter of the so-called “cooking hypothesis.” There is no known population of humans living without cooking today, suggesting this is a powerful and necessary skill.

Wrangham argues that the evolutionary transition from raw to cooked food was a “transformational moment” that fed the stomachs of early humans and allowed their brains to grow, giving rise to our lineage and ultimately our species. A new discovery in Israel makes this idea even more plausible.

An international team of scientists working in the northern part of the Dead Sea claims to have found the earliest evidence of prehistoric human food. At an archaeological site called Gesher Benot Yaakov, the remains of an ancient carp-like fish show signs that it was fully heated 780,000 years ago.

While this discovery is not the earliest evidence of the controlled use of fire by early humans, it is the oldest in Eurasia. car parks in africa Which Homo erectus It contains coal and burnt bones, at least 1.5 million years old. However, these are only secondary signs of burning, not clear signs of cooking. Evidence of the latter is much more difficult to obtain.

In fact, no evidence of cooking appears in the archaeological record until the Neanderthals arrived. homo sapiens. Until recently, the earliest evidence of cooking was the heated starchy plant remains found in an underground oven in Africa. And this place dates back to just 170,000 years. This is 600,000 years after the first humans in Israel cooked fish in the valley near the Dead Sea.

“We don’t know exactly how the fish was cooked, but since there is no evidence of exposure to high temperatures, it is clear that it was not cooked directly over the fire, nor thrown into the fire as waste or caustic material,” says archaeologist Jens Nyorka of the Natural History Museum in London. The team’s recent analysis shows that the teeth of ancient freshwater fish found in the area were caught in a nearby lake that no longer exists and exposed to the right temperature for cooking.

The findings trace our ancestors’ control over fire to the mid-Pleistocene, a period in which populations lived. homo erectus It gave way to larger-brained hominids such as homo heidelbergensis.

“Acquiring the skills necessary to prepare food represents an important evolutionary advance, as it provides an additional tool to make the best use of available food resources,” explains archaeologist Naama Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

“It’s even possible that cooking isn’t limited to fish, but also includes a variety of animal and plant species.”

Gesher-Benot-Yaakub is a place rich in the remains of ancient hominids. Along with flint, basalt, and limestone tools, archaeologists found fruits, nuts, seeds, and many species of land mammals, both medium and large. Whoever lived in this valley clearly knew this land well. But researchers believe it’s their understanding of freshwater habitats that has truly allowed this population to thrive.

It may even have helped people leave the African continent and live elsewhere. By jumping from one freshwater habitat to another, hominids were able to provide a good source of freshwater and nutrient-rich food.

Scientists have argued for years that eating fish rich in omega fatty acids, zinc and other important nutrients allows the human brain to develop in such a complex way. Raw fish was probably fine for the first hominids, but when cooked fish made its way into our ancestors’ diets, it may have facilitated digestion and saved humans from consuming dangerous pathogens. It would also provide more nutrients to the hominin brains. Perhaps the fish fried in Israel was just the beginning of our humanity’s culinary prowess.

“This study provides evidence that fish was cooked by early hominids … highlighting the role of wetlands in providing a stable year-round food supply, which played an important role in the survival and dispersal of hominins in the Old World,” the authors write.