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The control of fire by early humans was a critical technology enabling the evolution of humans. Fire provided a source of warmth and lighting, protection from predators (especially at night), a way to create more advanced hunting tools, and a method for cooking food. These cultural advances allowed human geographic dispersal, cultural ...
Fire making, fire lighting or fire craft is the process of artificially starting a fire. It requires completing the fire triangle , usually by heating tinder above its autoignition temperature . Fire is an essential tool for human survival and the use of fire was important in early human cultural history since the Lower Paleolithic .
Fire pots were vital to the development of civilization. Once humans had learned to contain, control and sustain fires, they had an invaluable tool for cooking food that would have otherwise not been edible. Fire pots were also useful for sharpening spears, hollowing out canoes, baking pottery, and many other tasks, such as staying warm.
Control of fire by early humans – European and Asian sites dating back 1.5 million years ago seem to indicate controlled use of fire by H. erectus. A northern Israel site from about 690,000 to 790,000 years ago suggests controlled use of fire in a hearth from pre-existing natural fires or embers. [10]
The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (c. 3.3 million – c. 11,700 years ago) (/ ˌ p eɪ l i oʊ ˈ l ɪ θ ɪ k, ˌ p æ l i-/ PAY-lee-oh-LITH-ik, PAL-ee-), also called the Old Stone Age (from Ancient Greek παλαιός (palaiós) 'old' and λίθος (líthos) 'stone'), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost ...
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used in the manufacture of implements with a sharp edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted roughly 2.5 million years, from the time of early hominids to Homo sapiens in the later Pleistocene era, and largely ended between 6000 and 2000 BCE with the advent of metalworking.
The following table attempts to list the oldest-known Paleolithic and Paleo-Indian sites where hominin tools have been found. It includes sites where compelling evidence of hominin tool use has been found, even if no actual tools have been found. Stone tools preserve more readily than tools of many other materials.
The Boxgrove Palaeolithic site is an internationally important archaeological site north-east of Boxgrove in West Sussex with findings that date to the Lower Palaeolithic.The oldest human remains in Britain have been discovered on the site, fossils of Homo heidelbergensis dating to 500,000 years ago. [2]