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https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257 "Underlining earlier work by Speth (61), experiments recen

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adv1257 "Underlining earlier work by Speth (61), experiments recently demonstrated that organic perishable containers, e.g., made out of deer skin or birch bark, placed directly on a fire, are capable of heating water sufficiently to process food, with the advantages of wet-cooking beginning at lower, sub-boiling temperatures than thus far acknowledged (62)." Reference 61 goes to this 2015 paper: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=When+did+humans+learn+to+boil%3F&author=J.+D.+Speth&publication_year=2015&journal=PaleoAnthropology&pages=54-67 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=When+did+hum... "to alert archaeologists and others to the fact that one can easily and effectively boil in perishable containers made of bark, hide, leaves, even paper and plastic, placed directly on the fire and without using heated stones."

pinkmuffinere 1y ago
Thanks for the link! Not to be argumentative, but I do want to highlight a couple points that I think may be the root misunderstanding: 1. The 2015 paper doesn’t indicate that it was unknown that you can boil water without pottery. It is meant to alert people to an already known fact. Maybe silly, but I do think there’s a distinction here — it’s not that the pinnacle of human knowledge was missing this, it’s that common sense was missing it. I’d compare this to the article “things SDEs assume about names”. Edit: then again, playing devils advocate against myself, the first paper does say “…sub-boiling temperatures than _thus far acknowledged_” (emphasis mine), which would seem to indicate that this was more than just a common misunderstanding. 2. The 2015 paper is not about boiling water in general, it’s about boiling it in a specific way. (Whereas the initial discussion was about boiling water by any method)

pinkmuffinere 1y ago

Thanks for the link! Not to be argumentative, but I do want to highlight a couple points that I think may be the root misunderstanding: 1. The 2015 paper doesn’t indicate that it was unknown that you can boil water without pottery. It is meant to alert people to an already known fact. Maybe silly, but I do think there’s a distinction here — it’s not that the pinnacle of human knowledge was missing this, it’s that common sense was missing it. I’d compare this to the article “things SDEs assume about names”. Edit: then again, playing devils advocate against myself, the first paper does say “…sub-boiling temperatures than _thus far acknowledged_” (emphasis mine), which would seem to indicate that this was more than just a common misunderstanding. 2. The 2015 paper is not about boiling water in general, it’s about boiling it in a specific way. (Whereas the initial discussion was about boiling water by any method)