The Culture of Homo erectus 187well, such as bamboo and other local woods, from which
excellent knives, scrapers, and so on can be made.
Use of Fire
With H. erectus came the first evidence of ancestral popu-
lations living outside the Old World tropics. Without con-
trolled use of fire, it is unlikely that early humans could have
moved successfully into regions where winter temperatures
regularly dropped to temperate climate levels—as they must
have in northern China, the mountain highlands of Central
Asia, and most of Europe. Members of the genus Homo
spread to these colder regions some 780,000 years ago.
The 700,000-year-old Kao Poh Nam
rock shelter in Thailand provides
compelling evidence for deliberate
controlled use of fire. Here, a
roughly circular arrange-
ment of fire-cracked
basalt cobbles was dis-
covered in association
with artifacts and animal
bones. Because basalt
rocks are not native to
the rock shelter and are
quite heavy, they were
likely carried in by H.
erectus. Limestone rocks,
more readily available
in the shelter, cannot be used for hearths because, when
burned, limestone produces quicklime, a caustic substance
that causes itching and burning skin rashes.^12 The hearth is
associated with bones, showing clear evidence of cut marks
from butchering as well as burning.
H. erectus may have been using fire even earlier, based
on evidence from Swartkrans in South Africa. Here, in
deposits estimated to date between 1 and 1.3 mya, bones
have been found that had been heated to temperatures far
in excess of what one would expect as the result of natural
fires. Furthermore, the burned bones at Swartkrans do not
occur in older, deeper deposits. If these fires were natural,
they would be distributed among all archaeological layers.
Because the bones indicate heating to such high temper-
atures that any meat on them would have been inedible,
South African paleoanthropologists Andrew Sillen and
C. K. Brain suggest that the Swartkrans fires functioned as
protection from predators.^13
Fire may also have been used by H. erectus, as it was
by subsequent members of the genus Homo, not just for
protection from animals out in the open but to frighten
away cave-dwelling predators so that the fire users might
In regions where bamboo was readily available for the fabrication of
effective tools, the same stone tool industries might not have devel-
oped. This contemporary scaffolding demonstrates bamboo’s strength
and versatility.© Michael S. Yamashita/Corbis(^12) Pope, G. G. (1989). Bamboo and human evolution. Natural History 10, 56.
(^13) Sillen, A., & Brain, C. K. (1990). Old flame. Natural History 4, 10.
(^14) Barrett, L., et al. (2004). Habitual cave use and thermoregulation in
chacma baboons (Papio hamadryas ursinus). Journal of Human Evolution
46 (2), 215–222.
(^15) Gamble, C. (1986). The Paleolithic settlement of Europe (p. 387).
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Indian Ocean
THAILAND
Kao Poh Nam
VIETNAM
THAILAND
SRI
LANKA
INDONESIA
NEPAL
MALAYSIA
LAOS
INDIA
CHINA
CAMBODIA
BURMA
(MYANMAR)
BHUTAN
BANGLADESH
live in the caves themselves. In addition, fire could be used
to provide warmth and light in these otherwise cold and
dark habitations. While earlier bipeds likely used caves as
part of their temperature regulation strategy as has been
observed in nonhuman primates,^14 controlled use of fire
expands the ability to regulate temperature considerably.
Not only did fire provide warmth, but it may have as-
sisted in the quest for food. In places like central Europe
and China, food would have been hard to come by in the
long, cold winters when edible plants were unavailable and
the large herds of animals dispersed and migrated. Our
ancestors may have searched out the frozen carcasses of
animals that had died naturally in the late fall and winter,
using long wooden probes to locate them beneath the snow,
wooden scoops to dig them out, and fire to thaw them so
that they could be butchered and eaten.^15 Furthermore,
such fire-assisted scavenging would have made available
meat and hides of woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses,
and bison, which were probably beyond the ability of H.
erectus to kill, at least until late in the species’ career.
Perhaps it was the use of fire to thaw carcasses that
led to the idea of cooking food. Some paleoanthropolo-
gists suggest that this behavioral change altered the forces
of natural selection, which previously favored individuals