Ancient humans used fire for cooking.

REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — About a million years ago, people used fire from natural sources such as lightning strikes. However, it is difficult to find clear evidence of the use of fire by humans long ago.

A new use of artificial intelligence (AI) is searching for evidence of controlled burn Primitive man are described in publications published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences In June 2022, a team of Israeli scientists and Canadian colleagues.

They focused on stone tools found at the Evron Quarry, an Israeli archaeological site in the Mediterranean Sea that was extensively excavated in the 1970s.

New research reveals that between 1 and 0.8 million years ago, early humans living at the site used controlled fire to cook food and make tools.

Researchers have used artificial intelligence to detect variations in the structure of tiny prehistoric atoms found in the Evron quarry. These stones may have been used in many places Camp fire First discovered.

The story of taming fire

Scientists try to find evidence of fire in artifacts without obvious burn marks.

“This reveals that there are no signs of fire pyrotechnics (controlled fire in ancient times) during the Lower Paleolithic volcanic period. And a new Lower Paleolithic site adds to the many archaeological sites with evidence linking hominid artifacts and resulting fire,” the authors said. earth sky.

This suggests that using artificial intelligence as a tool could help us discover more about our distant ancestors.

The research team hopes that other researchers will adopt their methodology and examine both places where early humans may have lived, leaving more undiscovered clues to the early mastery of fire.