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Fire exists in nature, that much we know!
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But the moment where a human figured out how to create fire, completely changed everything for our species.
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In fact, if humans hadn’t discovered how to create fire, practically everything throughout the course of human history would have changed, or maybe even not have happened at all.
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Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, I’m Charlotte Dobre.
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Don’t forget to like and subscribe and let us know in the comments below a question you have always wanted to know the answer to.
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To understand what human life might be like if we never discovered how to create fire, we’ve gotta go to an island in the bay of Bengal, North Sentinel island.
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The tribe that lives on North Sentinel island have not figured out how to create fire.
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Yes, they still use fire, but they have to wait for lightning to strike on the island.
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Then, they simply keep the embers lit as long as possible, until lightning strikes again.
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The north sentinels live a hunter gatherer lifestyle, and they avoid contact with the outside world, and even other local tribes.
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Life for the north sentinelese has not changed much in sixty thousand years, they are completely untouched by civilization.
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This can give us some insight into what life would be like for humans if we had never mastered fire.
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Around one point eight million years ago, hominids began to experience a growth in brain size.
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This, of course, was not by accident.
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It was because hominids began consuming more calories.
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The first encounter that early humans had with fire probably came after some sort of lightning storm or wildfire.
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The food that became ‘cooked’ by the fire was found and tried and it was likely a lot more appetizing than raw food, and when homo erectus figured that out, they probably wanted to replicate it.
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They then took the embers of old fires and sheltered them from rain.
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The exact time that humans mastered fire is debated among anthropologists.
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Some say it happened six hundred thousand years ago, other say three hundred thousand, and others a hundred and twenty-five thousand years ago.
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Evidence of charred bones and primitive stone tools in a cave In South Africa suggests that some of our ancestors figured out how to master fire around one million years ago.
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Regardless of whether or not humans could create fire or not, they still used it for cooking by keeping old embers lit as long as possible.
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Creating fire meant being able to cook, which was the real breakthrough.
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Being able to cook meant being able to consume more different types of food, which lead to more nutrition and calorie intake.
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This lead to the advancement of the brain in homo sapiens.
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Cooking food also meant less bacteria and fewer diseases, which in turn meant that humans lived longer.
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If it weren't for fire, our entire species might not even exist, but if we did find a way to evolve, we would likely still be living in the Stone Age.
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To make many different types of ancient tools and weapons, early man needed fire.
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Ancient spears were found to have been fire hardened.
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Creating spears meant that humans changed the way they hunted.
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Fire also creates warmth.
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It can be said that fire took away our need to keep our bodies warm with hair.
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Perhaps humans that lived further away from the Equator, where it was colder, would have evolved differently.
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Then there’s also the thought that perhaps humans would not have ventured to colder climates had they not found a way to create fire.
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Fire allowed humans to travel and settle in colder climates, because it meant that they could follow a herd of animals, hunt them, then return to a campfire to warm up and seek shelter at night.
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Fire led to the creation of larger settlements, and cultural advancements.
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Humans began to be more social, they began to gather around fire and create base campsites.
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Animals were afraid of fire, so having a fire close by was a good way to ward off predators.
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Hominids also discovered that meat could be dried using fire, and could then have been preserved for times when meat was scarce.
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Fire was also used to create art, and a society with art means that it’s a society with culture.
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Clay, pottery and statues are just a couple examples.
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The earliest discovery of pottery was from twenty thousand years ago in China.
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In short, modern civilization would not exist without the ability to control fire.
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Thank you for watching Life’s Biggest Questions.