Researchers at the University of Leiden and the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands suggest that the first Cultural Revolution in the history of humanity occurred about 400 thousand years ago when the ancestors of modern people began to make fire actively. This is reported in a press release on EurekAlert!.
The earliest evidence of the possible use of fire is few; it is difficult to distinguish them from the natural remnants of the fire. On the contrary, later 400 thousand years ago, traces of the deliberate use of fire were found in many well-preserved sites of ancient sites where archaeological excavations were carried out.
The widespread of a certain cultural behavior can be explained in several ways: by an independent appearance in several places, migration of populations, or the transfer of genes associated with the behavior. Due to the lack of widespread environmental changes and genetic or fossil evidence of movements of hominin populations during this period, scientists argue that cultural distribution is the most plausible version.
The spread of stone tool technology occurred at an early stage of human evolution, which corresponds to the traces of population migration, for example, in the history of the Acheulean hand axe technology. At the same time, about 400 thousand years ago, the active spread of ancient technologies began, which precedes the flourishing of cultures associated with the late Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens.
