The ability to produce fire on demand is one that humans share with no other species in the world. Its importance to humanity is underlined by its recurrence in traditions around the world: the well-known story of how Prometheus stole the secret of fire from the gods for the benefit of humanity is only one such example. This is hardly surprising for a discovery that Darwin described as “probably the greatest, excepting language, ever made by man” – but how was it made?
This 12,000-word eBook short read, the tenth in the In search of series investigates evidence for the early use of fire both by early modern humans and archaic humans, including Neanderthals and Homo erectus.
*** This and the other 11 short reads in this series are available in a single collection: Prehistoric Investigations 2: In search of ***