Video:Learn About the Discovery of Fire

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Transcript:Learn About the Discovery of Fire

The discovery of fire, or, more precisely, the controlled use of fire was, of necessity, one of the earliest of human discoveries.

Discovery of Fire Occurred in the Early Stone Age

The controlled use of fire was an invention of the Early Stone Age. The earliest evidence for controlled use of fire is at the Lower Paleolithic site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel, where charred wood and seeds were recovered from a site dated 790,000 years ago.

The next oldest site is at Zhoukoudian, a Lower Paleolithic site in China, and at Qesem Cave (Israel), between about 200,000-400,000 years ago.

Hearth Construction Demonstrations the Discovery of Fire in a Controlled Setting

A hearth is a deliberately constructed fireplace. The earliest fireplaces were made by collecting stones to contain the fire, or simply reusing the same location again and again and allowing the ash to act as hearth construct. These are found in the Middle Paleolithic period, about 200,000-40,000 years ago.

Earth ovens, on the other hand, are hearths with banked and sometimes domed structures built of clay. These were first used during the Upper Paleolithic (about 40,000-20,000 years ago), for cooking, heating and sometimes, to burn clay figurines to hardness.

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