The skill of burning fire (Fire) to ancient humans (Ancient Humans) helped most to dominate the natural world around them. This has been a result of a recent study that found evidence that the whole ecosystem (Ecosystem) was replaced by a fire-burning ancient human being.
Information collected from these evidences
The study by Yale University was published only last week in the Journal of Science Advance. It contains archaeological evidence of a dense group of 92,000-year-old stone sculptures, along with ancient environmental data from the northern coasts of Lake Malawi in East Africa. Documenting these evidences revealed that ancient humans used to be ecological engineers.
Use of special method
The study found that ancient human fires were used to prevent forests from reflourishing in the area. For this, they used to create a wide area of bushes that still exists today. Jessica Thomson, an ancient anthropologist at Yale University, explained the oldest such evidence.
Such capacity seen for the first time
Jessica, lead author of the research and assistant professor of anthropology at the Faculty of Art and Sciences, explained that this is the oldest evidence she has seen in which humans radically transformed their ecosystem through fire. This shows that from 2 million to 11,000 years ago, humans had invented new methods of burning fire, turning the dense forests of the area into open areas.
They found support in Thomson's study
Thomson's study was contributed by 27 colleagues from institutions in the Us, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. Davit Wright of the Malawi Department of Museums and Monuments, University of Oslo, who studied archaeological sites and the Saraivory of Penn State also contributed to the analysis of the archaeology environment.
The sculptures that the researchers studied were made in the Middle Stone Age in Africa. This time is at least 3.15 million years ago. Ancient modern humans made their presence felt in this era. Africa's archaeological record shows that by this time knowledge and social complexities had started to develop to a great extent.
Lake change preserves evidence
Thompson and Ride collected data for a long time and then studied the archaeological records with environmental writing. They found that the records they had collected and the ancient environmental records they received had a lot of similarity. The water level of Malawi lake has been fluctuating considerably for ages. In the most dry time of the lake, which ended 85,000 years ago, it had become two small salt water lakes. After that, the water level of the lake remained high. In the same lake, researchers found ancient environment and other forms of evidence.
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