The Discovery of Fire

For my visual blog, I decided to use a picture of fire. I primarily chose fire because of the relevance of it to Neanderthals, but also a lot of feelings come up when people think of fire. Fire is a substance that can both bring a lot of help and harm to a human. Some people who have been severely burnt or who witnessed a house fire may see fire as a negative substance. Others, however, may see it definitely. Without fire, we would still be eating raw meet, which takes much more energy for the body to absorb. Imagine eating food all your life that was not cooked in some way. Without fire, man may never have been able to spread throughout the earth. Before the time of man permanetely settling in one place, a fire served as a place for warmth and protection from possible predators. It was also a place that created light, which allowed humans to carry on their activities throughout night time . I feel that fire is a blessing to humanity. However, any blessing can turn into a something bad when not used correctly.

After what was mention above, it is pretty obvious how relevant the notion of fire is to the Neanderthals. For the most part, Neanderthals lived in Europe from 200,000 B.C. to 30,000 B.C. During this time, Europe was quite a bit colder than it is today. Without fire, there is no plausible way a human species could survive the harsh conditions of this time (In fact, modern humans stayed in Africa until about 100,000 B.C.). Fire served not only as a place where food was cooked, but a place where a group of people must gather at night. Due to the need of fire, a Neanderthal culture was formed, which has remnants of permanent fire places, stone and bone tools, and burying places for the dead. When wondering how we somehow managed to go from being berry pickers to hunters and gathers to where we are today, one must give the creation of human-made fire the credit it serves.