If you91Ƶre cooking a meal for Thanksgiving or just showing up to feast, you91Ƶre part of a long human history 91Ƶ one that91Ƶs older than our own species.
Some scientists estimate our early human cousins may have been using fire to cook their food almost 2 million years ago, long before Homo sapiens showed up.
And a recent study found what could be the earliest known evidence of this rudimentary cooking: the leftovers of a roasted carp dinner from 780,000 years ago.
Cooking food marked more than just a lifestyle change for our ancestors. It helped fuel our evolution, give us bigger brains 91Ƶ and later down the line, would become the centerpiece of the feasting rituals that brought communities together.
91ƵThe story of human evolution has appeared to be the story of what we eat,91Ƶ said Matt Sponheimer, an anthropologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who has studied the diets of early human ancestors.
The , published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, is based on material from Gesher Benot Ya91Ƶaqov in Israel 91Ƶ a watery site on the shores of an ancient lake.
Artifacts from the area suggest it was home to a community of Homo erectus, an extinct species of early humans that walked upright, explained lead author Irit Zohar of Tel Aviv University.
Over years of 91Ƶdigging in mud91Ƶ at the site, researchers examined a curious catch of fish remains, especially teeth, said Naama Goren-Inbar, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who led the excavations.
Many were from a couple of species of big carp, and they were clustered around certain spots at the site 91Ƶ places where researchers also found signs of fire. Testing revealed the teeth had been exposed to temperatures that were hot, but not super-hot. This suggests the fish were cooked low and slow, rather than tossed right onto a fire, Zohar explained.
With all of this evidence together, the authors concluded that these human cousins had harnessed fire for cooking more than three quarters of a million years ago. That91Ƶs much earlier than the for cooking, which showed Stone Age humans ate charred roots in South Africa.
The researchers 91Ƶ like many of their colleagues 91Ƶ believe cooking started long before this, though physical evidence has been hard to come by.
91ƵI am sure that in the near future an earlier case will be reported,91Ƶ study author Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University said in an email.
That91Ƶs in part because harnessing fire for food was a key step for human evolution.
Cooking food makes it easier for the body to digest and get nutrients, explained David Braun, an archaeologist at George Washington University who was not involved with the study. So, when early humans figured out how to cook, they got access to more energy, which they could use to fuel bigger brains.
Based on how human ancestors91Ƶ brains and bodies developed, scientists estimate that cooking skills would have had to emerge nearly 2 million years ago.
91ƵIf we91Ƶre out there eating raw items, it is very difficult to make it as a large-bodied primate,91Ƶ Braun said.
Those first cooked meals were a far cry from today91Ƶs turkey dinners. And in the many, many years in between, humans started not just eating for fuel, but for community.
In a , researchers described the earliest evidence of a feast 91Ƶ a specially prepared meal that brought people together for an occasion 12,000 years ago in a cave in Israel.
The cave, which served as a burial site, included the remains of one special woman who seemed to be a shaman for her community, said Natalie Munro, a University of Connecticut anthropologist who led the study.
It seems her people held a feast to honor her death. Munro and her team found large numbers of animal remains at the site 91Ƶ including enough tortoises and wild cattle to create a hearty spread.
This 91Ƶfirst feast91Ƶ came from another important transition point in human history, right as hunter-gatherers were starting to settle into more permanent living situations, Munro said. Gathering for special meals may have been a way to build community and smooth tensions now that people were more or less stuck with each other, she said.
And while the typical feast may no longer involve munching on tortoise meat in burial caves, Munro said she still sees a lot of the same roles 91Ƶ exchanging information, making connections, vying for status 91Ƶ happening at our modern gatherings.
91ƵThis is something that91Ƶs just quintessentially human,91Ƶ Munro said. 91ƵAnd to see the first evidence of it is exciting.91Ƶ
91ƵMaddie Burakoff, The Associated Press