FIRE

The first fuel that enabled human beings to land on the moon was harnessed right here in Africa.

Chant Schatz

The history of fire is something of a smokescreen, as researchers have not been able to pinpoint the exact period in which it was first used. Nevertheless, its enduring power dating from millions of years ago has not gone unnoticed in the crevices of the Earth’s surface.

“The earliest evidence of fire in the literature is 1.6 million years ago and is recorded in a site in Kenya in the Turkana basin, although this is controversial, because not everybody accepts that date,” says Professor Francis Thackeray, a palaeoanthropologist in the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) at Wits University.

Brain And Burnt Bones

One of the earliest discoveries of the use of controlled fire was made in the 1970s. That’s when palaeontologist Charles ‘Bob’ Brain excavated burnt bones in deposits thought to be about one million years old inside the Swartkrans cave located in the Cradle of Humankind, northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa.

“Brain was very meticulous. He studied bones that had been blackened and after chemical analysis found that the temperature of the fire was in the order of 700 degrees Celsius. You don’t get this kind of temperature from grass fires. A veld fire can be quick and burns at a relatively low temperature of about 200 degrees,” says Thackeray.

The presence and distribution of these burnt bones recovered from Member 3 in the cave was claimed to be the earliest direct evidence for use of fire by hominids on record.

Fire And Fossils

In a new discovery, Lee Berger, Professor in the Wits Centre for Exploration of the Deep Human Journey, and his team, have determined that Homo naledi, dating back to the Middle Pleistocene 335 000-236 000 years ago, used fire for lighting in the Rising Star Cave System.

The fossils of Homo naledi lay deep underground in a seemingly inaccessible dark chamber. The question of how they could have got there, far in the dark zone, has been a continuing mystery. Now the team has found a possible answer: evidence of fire throughout the cave. Berger examined the ceiling and realised that there was clear evidence of soot from ancient fires.

“We were blind to the evidence of fire, but once our eyes were opened, we saw that it was there throughout the cave system. It was everywhere,” says Berger.

FLAME-GRILLED FRUITS

Fire in prehistory was discovered in various cave systems in southern Africa including the Wonderwerk Cave in the Northern Cape, Klasies River in the Eastern Cape, as well as the Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal.

Professor Lyn Wadley in the ESI found the earliest example of fire used for cooking at the Border Cave, which was first occupied at least 227 000 years ago, although its earlier occupation has not yet been dated.

“Right from the beginning of human occupation in Border Cave, people were lighting fires and cooking meat. From about 170 000 years ago, people in Border Cave were also collecting edible Hypoxis rhizomes [underground stems of a genus of flowering plants] that were transported to the cave for cooking and sharing,” says Wadley. “This is the earliest known evidence anywhere of the cooking of plants, but of course the practice may have been earlier.”

Today, Homo sapiens is the only species that has been able fully to master fire. As Thackeray explains: “Without the controlled use of fire, it would not be possible to power a rocket. Without a rocket, it would not be possible to go to the moon. So, in a sense, the first small technological that led to the giant leap of lunar exploration, began here in South Africa.” C