What role did fire play in the development of humans?

Question

In the olden days where fire took place...or also disasters or volcano eruptions.

Answer 1

This covers a very wide variety of topics, from the initial use of natural sources to the complicated methods of fire control used today in modern urban centers.

Obviously, locations like Hawaii are prone to volcano eruptions and this lead to the development of religious aspects of fire and lava as well as any technical development.

Fire is usually listed as a source of light and heat, and often given the role of widening the diet and digestibility of food items.  As important is the technological advances possible, starting with the hardening of points on wooden sticks to be used as tools and shaping green wood.

Fire is necessary for the hardening of clay for use as ceramic pots and other utensils.  Even later came the use of fire to bake bricks.

High temperatures in fires lead to the development of glass making.

As the control of fire became better, higher temperatures were created when necessary to smelt metal ores, work metals and even fuse metal items.  The metal knife was one of the first items made by prehistoric metal workers.  Casting of brass and bronze became possible.

Fire made possible the development of humans from the stone age to the use of metals.  It had made so much more possible since then.

Answer 2

Fire allowed us to recognize that cooking animals tasted better than eating them raw.  I often wonder though, how they came to learn that.

Answer 3

The control of fire by early humans was a turning point in human cultural evolution that allowed for humans to proliferate due to the incorporation of cooked proteins and carbohydrates, expansion of human activity into the night hours, and protection from predators.

Also see this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3670...

Answer 4

They eat the wrong food.