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CrowdScience: How did we discover fire?

Discussion & Talk

The power of fire

25/02/2022 GMT

How did we discover fire?

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, How did we discover fire?

How did we discover fire, and how did that knowledge spread around the world?

How did fire become part of the human toolkit? When did we learn to control it? And was the knowledge of firemaking spread by one migrating community, or discovered many times?

Controlling fire was a turning point in the development of human civilisation. But how did fire become part of the human toolkit? It's a question that has got Crowdscience listener Joseph wondering. He wants to know how humans first made fire and how that knowledge spread around the world, eventually developing into our industrial civilisations today. 

Archaeologists have many different ideas and theories about this. Did humans learn the skill millions of years ago, and carry it with them as they migrated out of what is now Africa? Or was it a skill developed much later, after different groups had settled in different locations? Did people share the skill with each other or did different groups of people discover it individually?

Marnie Chesterton speaks to experts to try to piece together the archaeological clues to discover what kindled humankind's relationship with fire and flame. She hears about the early evidence of fire from Anand Jagatia, who visits Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa, and she speaks to an archaeologist who has found remains of burned flint suggesting campfire locations dating back hundreds of thousands of years in Israel. Marnie also tries her hand at making fire, Neanderthal style. 

Contributors:
Dr Andrew Sorensen, Leiden University
Prof Nira Alperson-Afil, Bar-Ilan University
Prof Richard Wrangham, Harvard University
Dr David Morris, McGregor Museum
Candice Koopowitz, Simon Fraser University
Dr Katharine MacDonald, Leiden University 

Presented by Marnie Chesterton and Produced by Hannah Fisher for BBC World Service

Image Credit: Getty Images

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