Oldest Evidence of Cooking Discovered! Researchers Find Remains of 780,000-Yr-Old Fish That Was Cooked Slowly Over Fire

In 2022, researchers found what they believed to be the oldest evidence of cooking in Israel. The proof came in the form of fish teeth clumps found at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological site, stated Science Daily. Researchers found proof which indicated that these fishes were cooked at controlled temperatures. Findings regarding these fish fossils have been published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. 

Cooking was a huge milestone in human evolution. Though experts have come across evidence like remains of charred animals and root vegetables, it has still been hard for them to determine when exactly the practice of cooking began. This is because, it was always difficult to determine if the animals were thrown into the fire, or were cooked at a controlled temperature.

For this site in Israel, researchers believe the cooking scenario is possible because they have only found teeth. This implies that the fish was possibly processed in low temperatures, which impacted all the other parts except teeth. These remains spotted have been dated back to 780,000 years ago, and if the claims are correct, it is the oldest known evidence of cooking for researchers. 

Researchers associated with the study focussed on areas where they suspected a hearth was placed in the past. The assumed hearth further implied that the fishes went through some form of burning. To confirm whether the burning was a part of cooking, the team applied a technique used in forensic investigations. In this process, X-ray diffraction is conducted to measure crystal sizes in tooth enamel.

These crystal sizes alter under exposure to fire. "In this study, we used geochemical methods to identify changes in the size of the tooth enamel crystals, as a result of exposure to different cooking temperatures. When they are burnt by fire, it is easy to identify the dramatic change in the size of the enamel crystals, but it is more difficult to identify the changes caused by cooking at temperatures between 200 and 500 degrees Celsius. The experiments I conducted with Dr. Zohar allowed us to identify the changes caused by cooking at low temperatures. We do not know exactly how the fish were cooked but given the lack of evidence of exposure to high temperatures, it is clear that they were not cooked directly in fire and were not thrown into a fire as waste or as material for burning," Dr. Jens Najorka of the Natural History Museum in London explained.

Through the analysis, researchers concluded that these fishes had interacted with temperatures between 390 and 930 degrees Fahrenheit. This meant that the creatures were not tossed into the fire, instead they were cooked whole inside an earthen oven. Researchers have not spotted human remains at the site, but have located stone tools which imply that Homo Erectus inhabited the region.

Researchers have yet to understand the precise way or recipe with which the fish was cooked. "We do not know exactly how the fish were cooked, but given the lack of evidence of exposure to high temperatures, it is clear that they were not cooked directly in fire and were not thrown into a fire as waste or as material for burning," said Najorka, stated Smithsonian Magazine. The scientific community wants more research before accepting the remains as the oldest evidence of cooking. "It is also possible that the teeth exposed to lower temperatures were disposed of in dying fires or were closer to the less intense peripheries of fires," explained Don Butler, an anthropologist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks who was not involved in the study.