I was catching up on my podcast listening this weekend, and was listening to Hard Fork, a podcast hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton. I have been a long term listener of their work and consider their podcast the basis of my AI news and knowledge. In this particular episode, Kevin and Casey were doing something that is unusual for them, they were counting down 100 most iconic technologies that have impacted human civilization. They have never done such a thing before, so I was surprised. I am even more surprised by the fact that tech and AI geeks like them will put FIRE is the most iconic discovery for the humankind.
Generated by Designer in Microsoft Copilot
Being a geologist, I have always been fascinated by the evolution of humans during the last ice age. We have seen many ice ages in the past, but due to the ice cores from Greenland, we have near complete history of temperature for the last ice age. To be more precise, I must say, we have a complete history from temperature, atmospheric composition and ice accumulation for the last 117,000 years at a seasonal scale. Geologists who are familiar with fossil record in rocks, never have this much precision for the rest of the geologic time. Why? Because fossil/rock record rarely give precisions lower than 1 millon years!
One thing that struck me unusual with Kevin and Casey, that they said, controlling the fire, making is personal and family activity around camps was probably the earliest large scale story telling and therefore, the earliest form of spoken words as a mode of extended communication. As we know, fire is not really invented, but perhaps its control as a personal or family/group use was discovered around 1.7 Ma.
We also know with fire came the following:
It's this last bit, that is rarely spoken about, but it is probably very important as social norms and the very foundation of 'civilization' began to form around campfires powered by spoken words. The first sense of community, family, social media begin to form around fire with spoken and written symbols (petroglyphs).
I don't know if you know about a time called Younger Dryas, but it is a time between 12900 yrs - 11600 yrs before present. This is based on ice cores from Greenland, and it records a major drop of surface temperature (about 10 degree C drop in a season or two) during that time. Let me tell you a 10 degree C average temp drop anywhere in the northern hemisphrere is a big deal. It is basically turning on the ice age dial in an instant, very similar to to the movie Day After Tomorrow if you remember it. Only difference is this isn't a movie, this was real.
Trouble is both the nearest human species, likely Homo neanderthalensis (there is argument on when exactly they disappear) and definitely Homo sapiences were active during the Younger Dryas, and survived it! In northern and central Europe, mostly in caves and plains, and in the North America, in the great plains. They survived the Younger Dryas, when they saw temperature plunge almost in one or two seasonal winters, and they visibly seen the great ice sheets from the North advance to their door steps! The polar winter lasted for 1000 years+!
The only way they could survive the Younger Dryas, is because they have harvested fire. They could cook food, which made it easier to digest and safer to eat with higher calories that was essential to survive the cold. Without the fire, we wouldn't have been here. Most of the large mammals and megafauna (mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, saber-tooth tigers) of the North America couldn't survive the Younger Dryas. Humans did!
Thanks to the fire!
