Mastery of fire has given humans dominance over the natural world. A Yale-led study provides the earliest evidence to date of ancient humans significantly altering entire ecosystems with flames.
The study, published on May 5 in the journal
Science Advances, combines
archaeological evidence—dense clusters of stone artifacts dating as far back as 92,000 years ago—with paleoenvironmental data on the northern shores of Lake Malawi in eastern Africa to document that early humans were ecosystem engineers. They used fire in a way that prevented regrowth of the region's forests, creating a sprawling bushland that exists today.
Yale paleoanthropologist Jessica Thompson describes the earliest evidence of humans altering their ecosystem with fire in this video.
