ArticleNature ecology & evolution2022
Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel.
Article in Nature ecology & evolution, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 13 papers.
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13 citing papers in PubMed, 66 citations in OpenAlex.
- Geochemical basalt investigation reveals procurement strategy at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Dead Sea Transform, Israel.Scientific reports · 2026Article
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- Rethinking Hominin Air Sac Loss in Light of Phylogenetically Meaningful Evidence.Evolutionary anthropology · 2025Article
- Flame-forged divergence? Ancient human fires and the evolution of diurnal and nocturnal lineages in moorish geckos.iScience · 2025Article
- Starch-rich plant foods 780,000 y ago: Evidence from Acheulian percussive stone tools.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Cooler than cool.Nature materials · 2025Article
- A bioenergetic approach favors the preservation and protection of prey, not cooking, as the drivers of early fire.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Adverse Food Reactions: Physiological and Ecological Perspectives.Annual review of nutrition · 2024Review
- The wooden artifacts from Schöningen's Spear Horizon and their place in human evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- Nocturnal selective pressures on the evolution of human musicality as a missing piece of the adaptationist puzzle.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- An economic model and evidence of the evolution of human intelligence in the Middle Pleistocene: Climate change and assortative mating.PloS one · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
8 authors at 7 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Although cooking is regarded as a key element in the evolutionary success of the genus Homo, impacting various biological and social aspects, when intentional cooking first began remains unknown. The early Middle Pleistocene site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel (marine isotope stages 18-20; ~0.78 million years ago), has preserved evidence of hearth-related hominin activities and large numbers of freshwater fish remains (>40,000). A taphonomic study and isotopic analyses revealed significant differences between the characteristics of the fish bone assemblages recovered in eight sequential archaeological horizons of Area B (Layer II-6 levels 1-7) and natural fish bone assemblages (identified in Area A). Gesher Benot Ya'aqov archaeological horizons II-6 L1-7 exhibited low fish species richness, with a clear preference for two species of large Cyprinidae (Luciobarbus longiceps and Carasobarbus canis) and the almost total absence of fish bones in contrast to the richness of pharyngeal teeth (>95%). Most of the pharyngeal teeth recovered in archaeological horizons II-6 L1-7 were spatially associated with 'phantom' hearths (clusters of burnt flint microartifacts). Size-strain analysis using X-ray powder diffraction provided evidence that these teeth had been exposed to low temperature (<500 °C), suggesting, together with the archaeological and taphonomic data, that the fish from the archaeological horizons of Area B had been cooked and consumed on site. This is the earliest evidence of cooking by hominins.
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