Interesting link. Looks like we have to thank our ancestors for developing the tool of fire millions of years before there were modern humans. It’s one of reasons why even today we like very much both to play with fire and to sit around campfires.

Scientists agree that we started to make large evolutionary advances when we started to scavenge cooperatively, and that initially we played a role like jackals and hyenas, rather than as large mammal hunters. Fire was one of the tools that allowed us both to access nuntrient-rich bone marrow and to keep competitors/predators at bay. Cooking of course also allowed us to kill parasites in the meat – a significant problem – and to eat meat that had gone a bit “gamey”. We also used fire to modify our environment, by favoring grasslands at the expense of forests.