Taming Fire

Taming Fire
By: Mary Beth Cox
Odyssey magazine

Fire was a wonderful thing that humans have discovered. Fire is one thing that helps us live today. Prehistoric people thought that fire was scary until they realized it can help them. Wildfire is caused by nature, things like lightning, thunderstorms, molten material from volcanoes, all can make and cause fire. But back then when a wildfire was created and was buring down everything, humans and animals did not have fire fighter or lots of water to put it out, they just had to run away or else they would burn and die. Archaeologists have found hearths at campsites in Europe. Hearths are rocks that we use to put around the fires. When we make are own fire it is called a hearth fire.The differnece between hearth fires and wildfires is that hearth fires heats objects to higher temperatuers which are higher than wildfires. Animal bones can be analyzed so we can see the chemical changes and see if the temperature is higher or lower. At Swartkrans caves in South Africa, they found burnt animal bones, and saw it was exposed to higher temperatures. That shows that humans were cooking their meat. They new how to use the fire but not exactly make it from scratch. So we started to use fire over 1,000,000 years ago. Fire was good for many different things, first it cooked meat which made it easier for us to digest. Second it helped us stay warm in cold temperatures. Third, it gave us light when it was dark so we could still stay up even when the sun went down. And lastly it protected them from predators. Fire helped us stay alive, it helped our species not die out. All these things that fire did are the things that helped us live today.

Bibliography

Cox, Mary Beth. "Taming Fire The frist scientist?" odyssey magazine : 29, 30 . Rpt. in The frist 

     scientist . N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.