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I did read the article, yet came away baffled by the headline. Of course Neanderthal knew how to make fire...

• pdonis 7y ago
  > Of course Neanderthal knew how to make fire... How do you know? Saying "of course" implies a level of certainty that does not seem warranted, given how much we don't know about the Neanderthals.
  • dboreham 7y ago
    They had a brain almost as large as homeo sapiens, and lived in an interglacial climate with no access to tropical fruit, so they must have eaten cooked food in order to metabolize sufficient calories to power their brains. That requires cooking which requires fire. Also the point of divergence is estimated at less than 800kya whereas use of fire for cooking is estimated at 1.5mya. So Neanderthals would have to have both lost the ability to make fire apparently possessed by their ancestors, and somehow figured out how to survive in Europe without cooking.
    • pdonis 7y ago
      Evidently you didn't read the article very carefully. It discusses all of these points.
    • ggm 7y ago
      They had a brain almost as large as homeo sapiens, and lived in an interglacial climate with no access to tropical fruit, so they must have eaten cooked food in order to metabolize sufficient calories to power their brains. That requires cooking which requires fire. I'm not calling you wrong ab initio, but can you post something confirming to this theory? You really strongly state that its not possible to feed a large brain without cooked food. Raw blubber, brains, organ meat (liver) and freshly killed muscle meat are routinely digested. Nuts do not require cooking. Fruit does not require cooking and has carbohydrates (plant sugers) Whats the specific barrier to calorific intake which demands cooking?
    • in3d 7y ago
      A little larger brain actually, though with some brain areas smaller.
    • brohee 7y ago
      > That requires cooking which requires fire. Keeping fire likely predated making fire.
    • Symmetry 7y ago
      A better clue than that is that they had guts as small as a modern human's which tends to indicate they evolved for a diet of mostly cooked food.