The History of Fire

The first fires came from lightning strikes. After that, no one is super sure when we started controlling it and then later, starting our own. But it's sure fun to speculate! See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:38Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

• 1:47Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. And we're on fire with yet another fire episode of Stuff You Should Know about fire.

• 1:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, so Jerry asked me when you left the room. She was surprised we hadn't done one on fire. And I said, well, we did years ago on just sort of more the nuts and bolts and the science of the actual thing that is fire.

• 2:10Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  But I commissioned this one from Dave, I believe, that's a little more along the lines of like, what did it mean for people? And like, kind of when, you know, I wondered, like, did we learn how to make fire? Was there like a day that that happened? And do we know that day and that person? And the answer is no. Unfortunately, we don't know.

• 2:31Josh Clark?

  We not only don't know that also our technology will almost certainly never be so advanced that we will ever find out.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:40Josh Clark?

  And one of the reasons why is because there, there probably was multiple people at different times around the world who learned how to manipulate fire. And also, there's, there wasn't just like a one day where fire didn't exist. And then all of a sudden, somebody like strikes a flint in some shirt or something like that. And now there's fire. It happened in stages, humans' interactions with fire. And luckily for us, even though there isn't one day that this happened, and we can't say like, it was Todd. Todd was the one who invented fire. It is a very fascinating subject. It's definitely up my alley.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  Yeah. And it may have also not been linear. We may have had control of fire for a while, then not for a while.

• 3:29Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:29Speaker 02

  So basically, what everyone agrees on scientifically is that it, the discovery of fire was not an incident, but it was a process.

• 3:38Josh Clark?

  Right. And the traditional story goes that Prometheus went on a quest for fire, ended up hooking up essentially with a human woman and found that humans were way better than his own species.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:54Josh Clark?

  And we got fire from that.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:56Josh Clark?

  So we talked a little bit about fire and how much we needed. I remember saying that I saw somewhere that we're obligate fire users, that we essentially needed it to survive. And that raised the question like, do we still need it? And the answer is yes, we use it still today. But the the role that it played in human development is just staggering. Like, just the idea of cooking alone is like, just that revolutionary change. And all of the stuff that that unlocked for us nutrient wise, taste wise, let's not forget about taste. But then also, like, we made metals with it. We made pottery with it. We kept animals at bay with it, even mosquitoes, they don't like fires.

• 4:38Josh Clark?

  We learned to do all these different things to interact and manipulate our world using fire. So the idea of not having fire is just terrifying.

• 4:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, you know, I know we talked about this a little bit. There are theories that human language was born around the campfire because now people were awake and needed something to do when they sat around the fire. Like, talk about what they did that day. Obviously, fires would eventually power the fires that made steam possible and steam engines possible and birth the Industrial Revolution. So fire, very important. It's a technology which basically blew early humans' minds. Obviously, they didn't learn how to make fire at first and were going to go through these stages. Like, the first fire came from, you know, a lightning strike.

• 5:28Speaker 02

  But even that, you know, probably blew the minds of whatever was walking around back then and saw the the ground on fire all of a sudden.

• 5:37Josh Clark?

  Well, yeah, what I found fascinating, though, is the idea that fire is actually fairly new to Earth, you know, like, Earth was a watery planet for billions of years. And it wasn't until the atmosphere kind of congealed into its oxygenous state like it is now, and that vegetation grew, and then you started to have lightning strikes too. You put all those three things together, now you've got fire. Fire and it didn't exist before on earth. That was not something I've ever really thought of before. I thought that was pretty cool.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think they said the earth has been kind of fire ideal for about 470 million years, which is certainly a long time, but not on the order of, you know, billions and billions of years. Um, if you go forward in time a bit to about six million years ago, uh, that's when the first hominins appeared, uh, in Africa. So now all of a sudden you have, uh, the conditions for fire. And you have, you know, I want to say people. Is that even correct?

• 6:39Josh Clark?

  Hominins are people. Yeah.

• 6:40Speaker 02

  Okay. I just don't even know what people means.

• 6:42Josh Clark?

  Hominins are people too, Chuck.

• 6:44Speaker 02

  That's, that's what I think. Uh, all of a sudden you had people that could, um, eventually harness fire and then learn to make fire, or at the very least realize the benefits and take great interest in fire.

• 6:55Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they think actually, um, it's probable. So the, the best way to kind of look back in this kind of prehistory where there's not only no written record or even oral tradition, like there's no archaeological evidence at this point yet still even, right? So it's all just complete conjecture, but a pretty good way to kind of approach the whole thing is to say, okay, how do animals interact with fire?

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:18Josh Clark?

  Cause those first hominins were pretty close to the, um, the, the great ape ancestors we evolved from still. So you can make a pretty good case that they would have interacted with fire like other animals do. Animals basically run away from it. They ignore it depending on whether it's a threat or not. And then some of them actually use it to their advantage, like, uh, raptors have been seen, um, picking up burning sticks and dropping them elsewhere to flush out prey in quarry essentially, which is a jerk move, but it works.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And if there was ever any kind of, you know, wildfire that started because of a lightning strike, right behind that you would see predators like wolves or even some birds, um, e- either preying on the animals as they flee, or just having a better hunting ground because things were now kind of burned down. You could see everything.

• 8:06Josh Clark?

  Right, so you can make a pretty good case that early, early, early humans would have essentially been doing the same thing. That we would have eventually figured out that fire offers things that non fiery things don't. Like, for example, we probably started foraging was the first step. Where after a wildfire, we might have been looking for things to eat and been like, this tastes way better than when I catch it and pull its head off and then start eating. Whatever's happening here, this fire is doing something great to this.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the idea of accidental cooked meat must have just been mind blowing.

• 8:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  You know?

• 8:48Josh Clark?

  I mean, a rare steak is a thing of beauty in and of itself. But yeah, I don't want to say well done, but yes, cooked meat is good too. A cooked turkey leg is way better than a raw turkey leg.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, hey, I've never tested that theory, but I bet you're right.

• 9:07Josh Clark?

  It's one of those things that you don't even have to try yourself. You just innately know it and it's from this era.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. Gathering after foraging was the next step of sort of the discovery of fire. And that's when humans were like, hey, I have this fire. It may have happened by lightning strike, but I now have it in a little, a little bindle in my hand and I can, or maybe in a, in a log hollow. And I can carry this thing from one place to another now. Or maybe it's just a tree branch. If you're a little bit more of a simpleton like Tuk Tuk was. And now you could transport your fire from one area to the other. And you can use that fire to flush prey out or to protect yourself from the saber tooth tiger or whatever.

• 9:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's, that's a big one that I hadn't really thought of before, but you keep animals at bay because animals are used to wildfires and not going near them. So if you're a human or a hominid and you're huddling around a fire, the saber tooth tiger probably isn't going to come attack you right then.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  You never saw Jungle Book?

• 10:12Josh Clark?

  Oh, very, very long ago. And all I remember is Baloo doing his thing.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, the bare necessities.

• 10:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, so great.

• 10:20Speaker 02

  Still probably my favorite, even among the moderns, my favorite Disney cartoon.

• 10:25Josh Clark?

  My favorite's long been Robin Hood. That was always my favorite as a kid.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, I liked that Robin Hood a lot, but you just can't beat, there's so many bangers in The Jungle Book.

• 10:34Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right, all right. I'll go with that one then. I'll just, I'll throw out my own personal favorite in favor of yours.

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Why would you do that?

• 10:44Josh Clark?

  I just, I just wanted to get along.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Okay. All right. So they're carrying fire around at this point. They may have discovered like a way to actually keep it going better. Like I know on the survival shows, like a lone animal dung is a great, very sort of slow burning way to transport, transport fuel, like a burning cow pie, maybe?

• 11:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. So that's the gathering thing. So we go from foraging, like we have no control over. We just identified that it's something special to being able to move it around and keep it going. It's the key, thanks to the animal dung discovery, the cow pie. And then we finally reached the point. And this is where all of the archaeologists and anthropologists and all the ologists want to kind of pinpoint, when did humans start making fire ourselves? And we do have evidence of humans using fire very far back, more than a million years ago. But for hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years,

• 11:46Josh Clark?

  between that point and where we are unambiguously making fire ourselves, there's a lot of room for interpretation.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:55Josh Clark?

  Yes, we were cooking or something, or we were using a fire. It's clear that there were humans around this fire, but it's not clear that humans actually made the fire. We may have gathered it. When did we start making fire? That's the big question in archaeology and anthropology.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  That's right. Boy, it sounds like, I know it's early, but it sounds like a perfect place for a little cliffhanger's break.

• 12:19Josh Clark?

  It's what I do.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  All right, we'll be right back, everybody.

• 12:31Speaker 03

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 12:34Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 12:37Speaker 02

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• 13:01Josh Clark?

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• 13:37Josh Clark?

  Sure.

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• 13:48Josh Clark?

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• 14:32Josh Clark?

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• 14:41Speaker 02

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• 14:54Josh Clark?

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• 15:10Speaker 02

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• 15:48Speaker 02

  All right, we're back. We don't have a definitive answer, unfortunately. But again, we have a lot of good ideas. As far as those three stages go, they do get a little bit easier to pinpoint a rough timeline, but that foraging stage that we mentioned at first is, that's definitely the hardest to kind of lock down in time. There is no archaeological record, basically, during that phase. Sure. But they do think, and again, this is people just giving their best guess. They do think that Australopithecines, the early humans, may have been foraging around fires, and this is like four million-ish years ago.

• 16:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. I didn't see why they thought that, but like what the Australopithecus was doing that made them think that, but I don't know, maybe it had to do with their other behavior that made it seem like they would have done that. So the gathering phase, like I said, that dates back to about a million years ago, where it's very clear that humans have like had a fire somewhere, that it's not possible that like a lightning strike set off a fire in the areas where we found evidence of human habitation and fire together, say 100 feet from the mouth of a cave.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Right.

• 17:04Josh Clark?

  Very difficult for a wildfire to start there. So that's unambiguous is what they call it, like evidence that humans were were interacting or using fire, putting fire to some controlled use at that point. But it's far from clear whether they actually started that and almost certainly did not a million years ago.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's that can also be a little tricky because sometimes they confuse stuff, stuff that might look like charcoal or ash is some naturally occurring sediment from a cave.

• 17:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 17:38Speaker 02

  So, you know, they tried to kind of parse through that stuff over the years. But they have found, you know, sites like there's one, and we're going to go through a few of these in a minute, but one called the Wonder Work Cave in South Africa, that they basically have agreed is probably the oldest site of controlled on purpose fire use because they have found burnt bones there. And this is 100 feet into a cave.

• 18:03Josh Clark?

  Right. That's again, unambiguous use of human fire. There's also some contenders for when we started control, like making fire ourselves, starting fires. And one's about 780,000 years ago. 400,000 years seems to be the generally accepted latest date that humans became capable in a widespread fashion of making fire ourselves. So somewhere between a million and 400,000 years ago, humans became capable of making fire, of starting fires. And I say we talk about some of these different locations that are contenders for all this stuff.

• 18:44Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, there's the one in South Africa that I just mentioned. They have found and been able to date ash from that cave to about a million years ago. But again, we're not positive that that was, you know, ignited by humans or not. And they don't know exactly how the fires were used in that case. But it gets a little better as we move along. The Kessim Cave in Israel was discovered about 26 years ago. And that is near Tel Aviv. And this is where they have found the first fireplace, basically, the first hearth that dates to about 300,000 years. So that's, that's pretty unambiguous.

• 19:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And one of the reasons why they're like, yes, this is a pit, because up to that point, when they find like use of fire, it's just like kind of spread out. Maybe one fire was held there. This is like layer after layer after layer of fires in the same place. So that's clearly a hearth. There's another one in Israel called Gesher Benat Yakov. It's in northern Israel. And they, this is the one where they think that people were potentially starting fires as far back as 780,000 years ago. And this would have been Homo erectus, who was the longest-lived hominid. And they lived for almost 2 million years. And they were clever ones, too.

• 20:06Josh Clark?

  They were the first ones to basically take a leap forward in stone tool technology. They also invented Jordash genes. And they know that the Homo erectus were the ones who were making, or at least using this fire 780,000 years ago, because they found their characteristic stone tools like hand axes. And they were cooking fish essentially here on the banks of the Jordan River, carp that were up to like six and a half feet from what I read. And Chuck, I was reading about how they figured out that they were definitely cooking fish and that they weren't just like fish remains that they'd eaten raw and tossed into a fire. And they tested the fish teeth that had been cooked to see what temperature they'd been

• 20:50Josh Clark?

  exposed to. If there were a high temperature, they probably would have been remains just chucked into the middle of a fire. If they were exposed to a lower temperature, then this probably would have been a controlled roast. And they found the evidence for roasting. So they were cooking fish about 800,000 years ago there.

• 21:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, the next one is the Rising Star Cave in South Africa, very promising cave. And this one is a little controversial in that they do think that some sort of tiny-brained species of early human, they were called the Homo naledi. They think that they built fires in this cave, and this was about 335,000 years ago. But other people came along and said, no, I'm not sure if that's when it happened. It might have been other people that came to that cave later. And the similar kind of goes for another cave in China, the Zokodian Cave. That one was excavated in the 1920s, and people thought for a long,

• 21:45Speaker 02

  long time that like, hey, here's the oldest hearth, the oldest sort of purposeful fireplace, and it goes back a half a million years. But it's kind of gone back and forth since. In the 90s, 1990s, that is, they saw evidence of this ash there, and they said, you know, I don't think this is ash, actually. It was what Chuck will talk about later, is other organic materials that looked like ash. But then, later on in the 2010s, other people came back and had other evidence. They said, no, I think they were purpose-built fires here, which, you know, just goes to show kind of how hard it is to really pinpoint this stuff.

• 22:22Josh Clark?

  Right. Yeah, going back and forth between the 1920s and the 2010s like that, that's like archaeological whiplash.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:30Josh Clark?

  So we really need to just kind of also point out here, we're talking about hominins using fire, not Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens obviously knew how to use fire and how to make fire, but we almost certainly were not the ones that came up with fire ourselves. We might have learned it actually from some of the other species of humans that were running around at the same time as we were, like Neanderthals. And like I said, there was, there's evidence of like other species like Homo erectus using fire to one degree or another. As far as like maybe a million years ago, but there's a lot of questions about,

• 23:12Josh Clark?

  did every single species of human know how to make fire? And Neanderthals in particular have been kind of picked on as not necessarily knowing what they were doing with starting fires.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, this one has some pretty good arguments going, I think in both directions. They found evidences of activity in France and like sites in France that they excavated.

• 23:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 23:37Speaker 02

  And they, you know, what they found was there were more traces of fire from periods without glaciers than periods that did have glaciers. And it doesn't really track in some ways because you would think that they would, if they could make fire on their own, then they would have done that when it was colder. And also it makes sense in a way because in the period where there aren't glaciers, there are going to be more lightning strikes and thunderstorms and the vegetation's going to be dried out. So they may be, you know, using the fire even in the warmer periods because it's just there.

• 24:12Josh Clark?

  Right, exactly. They also find lots, or they have found in some Neanderthal sites, lots of ash buildup and not necessarily because this is a very ancient hearth, but because they had to keep the fire going. So it was constantly going because they didn't know how to get it started again if it went out. So yeah, those are pretty good arguments for Neanderthals not being able to make fire. But there are other people who point to other evidence that says like, no, actually Neanderthals knew what they were doing. One of them is that Neanderthals made birch bark pitch, which they used as basically an adhesive, like thousands of years before Homo sapiens were doing that.

• 24:57Josh Clark?

  And that they're also frequently found with manganese dioxide chunks, this black mineral. And it was usually interpreted as they were using this to like decorate their bodies or maybe even for cave art. Somebody has pointed out that, no, actually manganese dioxide is a major component in fireworks and you could use it as a pretty good fire starter. So. The jury's out, but for my money, they probably did know how to start fires because Homo sapiens have a very, very long tradition of underestimating Neanderthals and being proven wrong in the end as the science advances.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And while we don't know, you know, when all this started, we definitely know the how, and it's kind of how modern humans start primitive fires, like without any sort of, sort of manmade tools. Percussion methods is, you know, when you're striking that flint off of, you know, each other, like off of a rock, it's going to spark. And, you know, maybe they saw that and thought, hey, that looks a little bit like lightning and gave it a shot. You've got the old fire drill method or any kind of friction method of rubbing something together really, really fast and that'll, that'll get a fire going if you're good.

• 26:10Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the one, I've heard of both of those, obviously, but fire pistons I had not heard of. Essentially, you take a tube and a piston and put together their, they essentially form an airtight, well, coupling, I guess. You put a little bit of tinder, really, really dry, almost powdery or fibrous, like easily combustible material, right? And you put the piston in the tube and you press it really quickly and that compression of air heats the air just enough that it can actually ignite that, that tinder, then you use the tinder to catch more tinder on fire and now you've got a fire

• 26:49Josh Clark?

  started. Like, when you look back at some of this stuff, I was watching a video of using bow drills to create fire. I looked, I was watching a really neat video. There's a YouTube channel called Make It Primitive and they were making birch pitch with no pots. And when you look at this stuff, they're recreating that very, very ancient people figured out how to do. It's like, how did anyone ever accidentally stumble upon this? Like, I understand we're looking at like the, the developed endpoint version of this, you know, primitive technology, but I can't even imagine how somebody figured out how to make birch pitch in the first place. What, what happened?

• 27:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:32Josh Clark?

  In some random fire somewhere that gave somebody the idea to turn that into making pitch?

• 27:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of cool. Like, I don't know, maybe someone rubbed their hands together and it got hot and they're like, huh, friction causes heat. And, you know, maybe a thousand years later, that idea became, maybe a lot of friction could cause so much heat that something might actually catch on fire. Then they start looking around on like a good way to do that. Like, that's how it had to have happened. I just think it's amazing.

• 28:02Josh Clark?

  Yeah. There was probably a transition period, though, where some poor schmo's hands were bleeding. They rubbed them raw so much, trying to start a fire with them before they moved on to wood.

• 28:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, what I think is amazing is that there's really nothing new on the scene, you know?

• 28:20Josh Clark?

  Well, they say there's nothing new under the sun, Chuck.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  I guess so.

• 28:25Josh Clark?

  Do you want to take our second break and come back and talk, I don't know, about the history of fire?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 28:43Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability, and it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  That's right. Make a smart buy on the off-road Ready Tacoma or half-ton Tundra, two of Toyota's most capable and longest-lasting trucks, built with the strength for the tough jobs, the tech to power your next big adventure, and the rugged style for everything in between.

• 29:06Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 29:21Speaker 02

  That's right. And long after you leave the lot, your Toyota keeps delivering with great resale value. So you could trade in for more when you're ready for your next Toyota. From a great deal today to a great value tomorrow, a Toyota is right for you. Shop toyota.com for deals and details, or stop by your local Toyota dealer today. Toyota, let's go places.

• 29:46Speaker 02

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• 30:01Josh Clark?

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• 30:21Josh Clark?

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• 30:44Speaker 02

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• 30:48Josh Clark?

  Dude's fragrance-free wipes are made with 99% water and plant-based ingredients.

• 30:53Speaker 02

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• 30:57Josh Clark?

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• 31:04Speaker 02

  Just like human body molecules, Dude Wipes are made with 99% water and also plastic-free, plant-based materials.

• 31:11Josh Clark?

  So you can feel good while you wipe.

• 31:13Speaker 02

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• 31:26Josh Clark?

  Dude Wipes is the best clean pants down. Available at major retailers nationwide.

• 31:51Josh Clark?

  So, um, kind of at the outset, we were talking a little bit about how fire, um, just changed humanity. And there's some specific things that we used it for that helped advance, um, all like different species, not just Homo sapiens along. One is heat. Like there's the, the pretty widely believed consensus is that we could not, and we did not move into colder climates. Not just Homo sapiens, but all hominins, um, until we had at least figured out how to move fire from one place to another without it going out. That we just would not have been able to survive in northern, um, latitudes.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:33Josh Clark?

  Without fire. So that was a huge thing. It allowed us to spread further and further away from the tropics.

• 32:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And, uh, once you got out of the tropics, it allowed you to spread further and further wherever you were. Uh, because it provided light. Um, you could explore those caves. You could, uh, explore the, the darkness of the world around you. Um, I know I've said this before, uh, about camping and, um, you know, when I go to the family camp, sometimes we'll take people that have aversions to camping. And we have some solar power there and string lights that light up the camp at night. And, uh, I have learned firsthand that what I think is going on when people say they don't like camping is that they don't like the darkness. Once you leave that campfire, uh, because people that say they don't like camping have had a great time at the family camp.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Uh, because it's lit up all around you and they, they've said, man, I feel at ease here and I'm never at ease in the woods. I'm like, that's because you can see around you. It's the dark you're afraid of, or whatever you think is in the dark.

• 33:33Josh Clark?

  I feel like you're talking about Hodgman right now, aren't you?

• 33:37Speaker 02

  You know, Hodgman had a great time at the camp.

• 33:40Josh Clark?

  Oh, I'm sure he did. Hodgman has a good time wherever he goes, but I can also, he's a city boy.

• 33:46Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I let him sleep in my little, my little camper, the little

• 33:50Josh Clark?

  There you go.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  One bed camper. Yeah, we snuggled up.

• 33:52Josh Clark?

  That is very sweet and completely unsurprising.

• 33:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, it was sweet. It was a good snug. And we also made tools, John and I did with our fire, which is something that the early humans did.

• 34:04Josh Clark?

  So I'm a real birch bark pitch fan now.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Sounds like it, yeah.

• 34:09Josh Clark?

  This is what it's for. So it's a, it's a tari adhesive that you make by basically burning and condensing birch bark. Okay. Which I love birch trees in the first place. Pando is almost a birch. It's a quaking aspen, but they're close. They're similar. I just love that bark.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:29Josh Clark?

  You, so if you just, again, go watch Make It Primitive and the way that they make birch bark pitch. But you, you take this stuff, this tari stuff, and you say, take an arrow. There's an arrowhead in your right hand. There's a shaft in your left hand. There's a string of twine in your teeth, because both of your other hands are occupied. And you wind the twine around the arrowhead to get it to, to stay on the shaft of the arrow. And then after it's on, nice and tight, then you put a bunch of pitch around it and man, it really holds it fast. Now you've got an arrow that's going to really do the job, all thanks to your birch bark pitch. Although let's, let's also give a hand for twine too.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  You know, buddy, you are a hairs breadth away from being a big fan of Alone, the show that I've touted for a decade.

• 35:22Josh Clark?

  Do they talk in that?

• 35:23Speaker 02

  Not watching it because all this stuff thrills you.

• 35:25Josh Clark?

  Do they, do they talk in it though? Is there dialogue and narration? Because on Make It Primitive, they just do their thing. They don't talk.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Uh, I mean, they put people alone in the woods with a camera. So they're, you know, they're talking some, but there's not like Mike Rowe doesn't come on and say, what Jane is doing is making an arrow.

• 35:45Josh Clark?

  Gotcha.

• 35:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:47Josh Clark?

  Um, okay, I maybe I'll give it a shot. I don't know why I'm resistant to it either, Chuck. I think it's just reality television. I have an aversion to it in general.

• 35:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, I guess it's reality. To me, reality TV, there's stuff like this and Top Chef that are like real things. And then there's, you know, people, the shows where they just pit people against each other to argue and fight. Like, those are two different things.

• 36:10Josh Clark?

  For sure, for sure. Um, yeah, agreed. But yeah, so I think that's the only reason I'm just like not diving in feet first.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  Well, the real question is, do you prefer to cook your meat or smoke your meat?

• 36:23Josh Clark?

  Do I have to choose?

• 36:25Speaker 02

  No, you don't.

• 36:27Josh Clark?

  Well, there's a question, Chuck, about whether, um, people started heating their meat to cook it or to smoke it. I'm a smoker. Um, I'm on team smoker, to put it in a Taylor Swift kind of way.

• 36:40Speaker 02

  As for what you prefer or what you think they were doing?

• 36:42Josh Clark?

  What I think they were doing. I like smoked meat, but it is so bad for you that, um, I just, I, I, I eat it sparingly.

• 36:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, same here. Uh, so yeah, I mean, the idea is that, um, when they hunted a, a big, large megafauna, that they would have needed to do something with that meat. You know, there's too much meat to even cook and eat all at once, even if everyone's super hungry.

• 37:07Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 37:08Speaker 02

  So it seems like smoking meat may have been the first thing. How they figured that out, I have no idea.

• 37:14Josh Clark?

  I, it's all just conjecture. It just makes sense. Essentially, it's just from the size of the animal, no band of hunter gatherers as far as the size that we thought or think they are. They couldn't possibly have eaten like a woolly mammoth in one sitting.

• 37:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, but how do they know they didn't just like eat what they could and the rest went bad?

• 37:32Josh Clark?

  Because humans have a, a, um, a long history of not being wasteful, and we still aren't today.

• 37:40Josh Clark?

  I don't know. That's a great question, man. That's basically the, the argument against that is that.

• 37:45Speaker 02

  Well, maybe some of these sites, would they be able to tell if it was just bones? Or if it was like former meat?

• 37:52Josh Clark?

  Yeah, there's the tool marks for like getting meat off of the bone. There's teeth marks.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  All right. So there you go.

• 37:58Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but that, that doesn't, yeah, I guess, yeah, if you looked at the whole skeleton and there was just like one leg that was eaten and the rest of it was there, yeah. I think, yeah, I'm not sure what team I'm on now. I'm in my confused era.

• 38:13Speaker 02

  Well, we're both on team hearth because I know we both enjoy good fire and the, the idea that people have been sort of really interacting with fire. I know we've said that some people say a million years. It really became widespread of around 400,000 ish years ago.

• 38:30Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:31Speaker 02

  And that's when we really can have, have some pretty good archaeological evidence that there are hearths all over the place.

• 38:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  Uh, people are building permanent setups or at least semi, uh, semi-permanent setups where they would live and the hearth was a big, big part of that.

• 38:48Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah, for sure. And you wouldn't just use a hearth to like cook necessarily. There were different kinds of hearths that were designed to do different kinds of things. Like you would use a different hearth to fire clay pottery than you would maybe cook that one leg of mastodon, you know? And then, yeah, you might have a different hearth for sitting around the campfire and socializing and taking shrooms.

• 39:09Speaker 02

  I wonder if you could cook in a kiln?

• 39:12Josh Clark?

  Uh, I don't know. That'd be interesting. It'd be like dry sous vide.

• 39:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. So like, uh, you're, you're cook, you're, you're kilning your, or whatever, curing your pot. You might as well throw that turkey leg in there and double dip.

• 39:26Josh Clark?

  See what happens?

• 39:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:28Josh Clark?

  I'll bet it would not look right. It might be fine taste wise, but it would not look right.

• 39:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Emily's getting into pottery. Maybe, maybe we'll see. I'll try it out.

• 39:36Josh Clark?

  Oh yeah, do. Let me know how it goes.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Ruin her kiln.

• 39:38Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And say, I just can be like, my kiln smells like turkey.

• 39:43Speaker 02

  Sorry.

• 39:45Josh Clark?

  Um, one of the things that I thought was pretty cool is that fire actually um helped progress humans from age to age. It was, it was the reason we transitioned from the Stone Age to the Metal Ages, starting with the Copper Age. We learned how to use fire to smelt copper and then we started creating better and better tools from there. It was all thanks to fire. The whole thing, all of human prehistory swung on uh our use of fire right there.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. And they've also got evidence uh that perhaps, well, not evidence, I guess, conjecture again, that uh it has played a role in human biology.

• 40:22Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 40:22Speaker 02

  Uh, because humans have a gene mutation that we developed um after fire, seemingly, that made us less sensitive to smoke inhalation. Like, once fire started to be a thing, uh, people would stand around it and start coughing and be like, well, this is no good. So they would stand back a little bit. But eventually, the AHR gene, which helps us regulate our response to carcinogens and wood smoke, uh, came along, that mutation came along in that gene. So it was, it's a pretty clear sign, I think.

• 40:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and apparently it's just found in Homo sapiens. You can't find it in like Neanderthal DNA or Homo erectus DNA. So it's like, it just kind of goes to show you just how important fire is. Our bodies actually evolved to, to sit around fires better.

• 41:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:08Josh Clark?

  So we also learned to shout, I hate rabbits, to get the smoke from, from coming your way.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  I wonder where that came from?

• 41:13Josh Clark?

  I don't know. It makes zero sense.

• 41:16Speaker 02

  I bet someone knows.

• 41:17Josh Clark?

  Another one, Chuck, that's um, it, this makes sense, although I hadn't really thought about it before, our circadian rhythms um changed. Um, humans, as far as animals go, were the most alert in the evening. Most animals are not the most alert in the evening. They're, they're most alert earlier in the day. And the idea is that is because our interactions with fire allowed us to stay up much later, and hence our circadian rhythms changed and adjusted likewise.

• 41:44Speaker 02

  That's right. And then finally. That all sounds good when you're sitting around the fire, talking about hunting the mastodon.

• 41:50Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 41:50Speaker 02

  But that also means if Tuk Tuk is sick, Tuk Tuk is getting other people sick. So ancient humans might have, uh, you know, spread disease a little more readily because people are just hanging out more.

• 42:01Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I was reading a study that, um, they said that tuberculosis emerged in humanity about the same time we started, um, using fire, um, like being able to control it, not necessarily make it ourselves, but at least to move it around. And yeah, huddling together helps a, um, a contagible or contagious disease.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:23Josh Clark?

  Spread much more easily because not only are you closer around a fire, you're also probably in like a rock shelter too. So tuberculosis loves fires and rock shelters. Everybody knows that.

• 42:36Speaker 02

  That's right. And by the way, I like contagible. I think I'm going to go with that from now on.

• 42:40Josh Clark?

  Thank you. Thanks for that. I appreciate that, man. This is why you and I are so close. You're just supportive.

• 42:48Josh Clark?

  Uh, what else you got, Chuck?

• 42:50Speaker 02

  I got nothing else.

• 42:51Josh Clark?

  All right. I don't have anything else either. That's the history of fire. That's everything there is to know about fire. So don't even try to look for more. Uh, and since I said that, obviously it's time for listener mail.

• 43:04Speaker 02

  I'm going to call this follow up, uh, to gold standard. Hey guys, very much enjoyed the recent episode on the gold standard, but I have a small correction. Worn, worn. In the book, those ruby slippers, and I guess they're talking about the Wizard of Oz, yes?

• 43:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I remember in the gold standard episode, we were talking about how it was an allegory for the debate over the gold standard and the silver standard and all that. And we're like, I guess the ruby, there was the ruby standard and blah, blah, blah. And this, this is what they're writing in about.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  So in the book, those ruby slippers were actually silver and were meant to represent the silver standard, not a ruby standard. There was a charge debate going on in the States at the time on whether we should use the gold or silver standard, which was the allegory you discussed in the episode. Uh, the movie changed the silver slippers to ruby.

• 43:48Josh Clark?

  Hmm.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  I believe to show off the new technicolor technology. Uh, parenthetical, I am no film buff, so please correct me if I'm mistaken. Hey, that sounds good to me, Liz. Thank you guys for what you do. I'm going to see you live in Akron. All right, Liz from Cleveland. Can't wait to see you there. And that is a great email.

• 44:06Josh Clark?

  It is a great email. Thanks a lot, Liz. And Liz is among a handful of other people who wrote in to tell us that, which made the whole thing make way more sense. So nuts to Hollywood and cheers to the original version of something.

• 44:21Speaker 02

  That's right. Ruby standard.

• 44:24Josh Clark?

  If you want to be like Liz and get in touch with us and tell us something we don't know, we love that kind of thing. You can send it in an email to [email protected].

• 44:38Speaker 00

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, MyHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 44:53Josh Clark?

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• 46:20Josh Clark?

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