What is the significance of fire for the development of humanity on the planet?
The development of humanity on the planet goes back a long way to billions of years ago,
paleoanthropologists have found evidence of the human evolution theory, this evidence is mainly
based on fossils of earlier forms of life, the fossils prove the fact that earlier organisms changed over
time and are ancestors of current life forms. When scientist discover the fossils, they calculate the
age of the fossil and compare its characteristics with other fossils with varying ages including the
current modern human forms. Therefore, human evolution entails a clear understanding of genes,
behavior, body traits, physiology hence these are compared to note out similarities and differences
between human beings and other species.
Science has proven that the first human forms evolved around 2.8 million years ago, they are known
as the homo habilis because they were bipedal, they used tools made out of stones they had a lager
brain and smaller molar premolar tooth. One of the major changes in human evolution is the size of
digestive guts, evidence has proven that it has decreased over time, homo erectus had a smaller gut
than other beings before, this is due to the fact that more quality food was availing gradually, these
might have been softer foods like fruits and vegetables that were easy to digest therefore the food is
more nutritious for the development of the body like the brain. This proves that the increase in brain
size in the human species is due to good nutrition.
In order to make the food easy to digest the food molecule must be scattered to allow digestive
enzymes to penetrate, there is no other way of achieving this without cooking. Science has proven
that the human body receives more calories from cooked food than on uncooked food, we need
calories for energy, which is the primary reason we feed. With cooked food we spend less time
eating so we can be busy with other humanly activities we carry out. Our human ancestor ate raw
food so they had a lager gut and a smaller brain, because they ate raw food they spent more time
searching for food, but this changed over time as the gut became smaller and the tooth became
smaller this was due to the fact that they were now eating soft food that did not require larger
tooth, and hence they did not spend all day hunting for food they engaged in activities that made
them human that is visible on the behavior, these are activities such as making weapons and tools,
building shelters and arts.
All the activities that our ancestors carried out during the day required that they stay in groups or
villages and they had to communicate so language evolved. The one reason that brought these
communities together was because of a good nutrition that evolved around cooking. The only way of
cooking was with fire, so when human beings managed to tame fire it was only then that the
humankind was born on the planet. With fire they could cook and keep warm, that enabled them to
migrate to colder regions of the earth, for all of this to occur they needed to stay in groups mainly
for food and safety.
Scientists have slight evidence that the first human being, to master fire was 400 000 years ago,
known as homo erectus, they made fire by grinding stones. This is evident on observation of human
races that have recently been found, these people still practice behavior of our ancestors and they
make fire by grinding stones, they use the fire to cook and to keep warm. Fire also enabled woman
to be more fertile due to high calorie food and their babies would survive at all seasons of the year
because they could keep warm from the fire.
The theory of human evolution made the most vital turn when our ancestral being mastered fire and
started cooking food. By mastering fire they could keep warm, get good nutrition meaning they can
reproduce more and the development of organs like the brain could be initiated and furthermore
they formed groups that we can refer to as villages in nowadays. All of this was triggered by the
ability to master fire, therefore the is no doubt that fire is significant to the development of
humanity on the planet.