That home-cooked meal is 1.9 million years old

William Atkins
Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:28

Science - Biology

Scientists have determined that early humans first used fire to cook meals around 1.9 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought.

U.S. researchers at Harvard University studied the sizes of teeth and the feeding behaviors of extinct hominids, apes, monkey, and modern humans.

They concluded that Homo erectus, a precursor to modern humans (Homo sapiens), cooked their food with fire starting about 1.9 million years ago.

Previously scientists thought that early Man first discovered how to control fire about 1.5 million years ago - about 400,000 years later than this discovery reports.

Evolutionary biologist Chris Organ, one of the authors of the study, said that the teeth of Homo erectus were bigger than in earlier humans.

And, when humans developed the home-cooked meal they needed less time to chew their food, as opposed to meat that was raw when it was eaten.

Basically, we spend about 5% of our time chewing food, while early humans spent up to half of their time chewing their raw meat and other foods.

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