Oldest evidence of the controlled use of fire to cook food, researchers report

London - Most Kiwi guys love making and lighting fires to cook some food. An Israeli and UK academic study has unearthed the remains of a huge carp fish which mark the earliest signs of cooking by prehistoric human to 780,000 years ago.

This research pre-dates the available data by some 610,000 years, according to researchers.

The remarkable scientific discovery at an archaeological site in Israel proves fish were cooked roughly 780,000 years ago.

Until now, the earliest evidence of cooking dates to approximately 170,000 years ago. The question of when early man began using fire to cook food has been the subject of much scientific discussion for over a century. These findings shed new light and has been published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The research has huge importance of fish in the life of prehistoric humans, for their diet and economic stability.

By studying the fish remains they were able to reconstruct, for the first time, the fish population of the ancient lake.

These species included fish that reached up to two metres in length. The large quantity of fish remains found at the site proves their frequent consumption by early humans, who developed special cooking techniques.

These new findings demonstrate not only the importance of freshwater habitats and the fish they contained for the sustenance of prehistoric people, but also illustrate prehistoric humans' ability to control fire in order to cook food.

Until now, evidence of the use of fire for cooking had been limited to sites that came into use much later so this discovery is associated with the emergence of our human’s current species, homo sapiens.

The research team believe that the location of freshwater areas, some of them in areas that have long since dried up and become arid deserts, determined the route of the migration of early man from Africa to the Levant and beyond.

Not only did these habitats provide drinking water and attracted animals to the area but catching fish in shallow water is a relatively simple and safe task with a very high nutritional reward.

Cooking the fish was the first step on prehistoric humans' route out of Africa. Early humans began to eat fish around two million years ago but cooking fish -- as found in this study -- represented a real revolution.

The study is an important foundation for understanding the relationship between man, the environment, climate, and migration when attempting to reconstruct the history of early humans.