Scientists Find Oldest Evidence of Controlled Use of Fire to Cook Food

View of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov excavation site near the Jordan River in Israel. Courtesy of Tel Aviv University

The remains of fish analyzed by an international team of scientists revealed the earliest signs of cooking by humans, dating to 780,000 years ago, predating available data by about 600,000 years.

The finding, published by Nature, was made by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and Bar-Ilan University, in collaboration with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Oranim Academic College, the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research institution, the Natural History Museum in London, and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.

‘Large Quantity of Fish’

A close analysis of the remains of a 6 1/2-foot carp-like fish found at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) archaeological site in Israel showed that the fish was cooked roughly 780,000 years ago.

Previously, the earliest evidence of cooking was dated to about 170,000 years ago.

The GBY site is located in northern Israel just south of the Hula Valley, in the Dead Sea Rift.

The study was led by Irit Zohar, a researcher at Tel Aviv University’s Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and curator of the Beit Margolin Biological Collections at Oranim Academic College; and Naama Goren-Inbar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor and director of the excavation site.

The research team also included Marion Prevost, with Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology; Nira Alperson-Afil, professor at Bar-Ilan University’s Department for Israel Studies and Archaeology; and Jens Najorka with the Natural History Museum in London.

“The large quantity of fish remains found at the site proves their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques,” Zohar and Prevost said in a written statement. These new findings demonstrate the importance of the freshwater habitat and the fish it contained for providing nutrition for the groups of people who settled there.

Crystals From Enamel of Teeth

In the study, the researchers focused on pharyngeal teeth which are used to grind hard food such as shells that belong to fish from the carp family. These teeth were found in large quantities at different archaeological strata at the site.

By studying the structure of the crystals that form the teeth enamel—whose size increases through exposure to heat—the researchers were able to prove that the fish caught at the ancient Hula Lake, adjacent to the site, were exposed to cooking temperatures rather than simply being burned on a fire.

“We do not know exactly how the fish were cooked but given the lack of evidence of exposure to high temperatures, it is clear that they were not cooked directly in fire and were not thrown into a fire as waste or as material for burning,” Najorka said.

‘Revolved Around Fireplaces’

“The fact that the cooking of fish is evident over such a long and unbroken period of settlement at the site indicates a continuous tradition of cooking food,” Goren-Inbar said.

The research team said they believe the location of freshwater areas—some of them in areas that have long since dried up and become arid deserts—provided drinking water, attracted animals to the area, and enabled the people who lived there to catch fish in shallow water, a relatively safe task with a high nutritional reward.

The first evidence of the use of fire at the site—the oldest such evidence in Eurasia—was first identified by Alperson-Afil.

“The use of fire is a behavior that characterizes the entire continuum of settlement at the site,” she said. “This affected the spatial organization of the site and the activity conducted there, which revolved around fireplaces.”

The groups that lived there “made use of the rich array of resources provided by the ancient Hula Valley,” Goren-Inbar said. “Their food sources … were characterized by a rich diversity of plant species from the lake and its shores (including fruit, nuts, and seeds) and by many species of land mammals.”