GROUP 9
GROUP MEMBERS: Rishab, Gokul , Athul, Nandana.V and Manasadarshini
EVOLUTION OF FIRE
The discovery of fire by early
humans was a turning point in the cultural aspect of human evolution. They made
fire by hitting two rocks together, which created a spark and this spark created fire.
When early humans discovered how to build
fires, life became much easier in many regards. They huddled around fire for
warmth, light and protection. They used it to cook, which afforded them more
calories than eating raw foods that were hard to chew and digest. They could
socialize into the night, which possibly gave rise to story-telling and other
cultural traditions.
But there were downsides, too. Occasionally,
the smoke burned their eyes and seared their lungs. Their food was likely to be
coated with char, which might have increased their risks for cancers. With
everyone congregated in one place, diseases could have been transmitted more
easily.
Much research has focused on how
fire gave an evolutionary advantage to early humans. Less examined are the
negative by-products that came with fire, and the ways in which humans may or
may not have adapted to them.
Then slowly early humans evolved
and learned many more new things. They invented the matchstick. The first
matchstick was quite different from the matchstick we see today .It was just a
wooden stick with some mixture of dried cow dung and crushed leaf called Xavier boric. Then they would scratch
this matchstick in the rock many times until the mixture gets heated and lights
up .But today it is made up of chemicals and we can obtain fire in just one
scratch. Match stick was used to light the firewood and then cook their food
and to obtain warmth.
Then fire was used by people to
smoke cigarettes (smoking is injurious to health)
.With the invention of cigarettes, the cigarette lighter was invented, which
released fire just with a click on a switch which heated a liquid that is
inflammable. It is a small substance or fire source that can be carried in our
pocket.
Then it was turn of the microwave
oven and the induction cooker that make food using electricity. This was when
the LPG became expensive and limited.
Those were the different stages
in the evolution of fire that had occurred from the early period to today’s
world.