Scientists Find Oldest Evidence of Controlled Use of Fire to Cook Food

View of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov excavation site near the Jordan River in Israel. Courtesy of Tel Aviv University

The remains of fish analyzed by an international team of scientists revealed the earliest signs of cooking by humans, dating to 780,000 years ago, predating available data by about 600,000 years.

The finding, published by Nature, was made by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and Bar-Ilan University, in collaboration with the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Oranim Academic College, the Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research institution, the Natural History Museum in London, and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany.

‘Large Quantity of Fish’

A close analysis of the remains of a 6 1/2-foot carp-like fish found at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) archaeological site in Israel showed that the fish was cooked roughly 780,000 years ago.