A close analysis of the remains of a carp-like fish found at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological site in Israel shows that the fish were cooked roughly 780,000 years ago, a collaborative study that included Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers says. Until now, the earliest evidence of cooking dated to approximately 170,000 years ago. The question of when early man began using fire to cook food has been the subject of much scientific discussion for over a century. These findings shed new light on the matter and were published on November 14, 2022, in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The researchers define “cooking” as the ability to process food by controlling the temperature at which it is heated and includes a wide range of methods. “This study demonstrates the huge importance of fish in the life of prehistoric humans, for their diet and economic stability,” Dr. Zohar and Dr. Prevost say. “Further, by studying the fish remains found at Gesher Benot Ya’aqob, we were able to reconstruct for the first time the fish population of the ancient Hula Lake and to show that the lake held fish species that became extinct over time. These species included giant barbs (carp-like fish) that reached up to two meters in length. The large quantity of fish remains found at the site proves their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques. These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for the sustenance of prehistoric man, but also illustrate prehistoric humans’ ability to control fire in order to cook food, and their understanding the benefits of cooking fish before eating it.”
Until now, evidence of the use of fire for cooking had been limited to sites that came into use 600,000 years later than the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site. “The fact that the cooking of fish is evident over such a long and unbroken period of settlement at the site indicates a continuous tradition of cooking food,” Prof. Goren-Inbar says. “This is another in a series of discoveries relating to the high cognitive capabilities of the Acheulian hunter-gatherers who were active in the ancient Hula Valley region. These groups were deeply familiar with their environment and the various resources it offered. Further, it shows they had extensive knowledge of the life cycles of different plant and animal species. Gaining the skill required to cook food marks a significant evolutionary advance, as it provided an additional means for making optimal use of available food resources. It is even possible that cooking was not limited to fish, but also included various types of animals and plants.”
The team says that exploiting fish in freshwater habitats was the first step on prehistoric humans’ route out of Africa. Early man began to eat fish around 2 million years ago but cooking fish represented a real revolution in the Acheulian diet and is an important foundation for understanding the relationship between man, the environment, climate, and migration when attempting to reconstruct the history of early humans.
AR #125
Jurassic Soft Tissue”
by Stephen Robbins, Ph.D.
