Toward a Long Prehistory of Fire

This article explores a conception of the origins of fire as a process of shifting human interactions with fire, a process that, in a sense, still continues today. This is a counterpoint to the dominant narrative that envisions a point of “discovery” or “invention” for fire. Following a discussion about what fire is and how it articulates with human society, I propose a potential scenario for the prehistory of fire, consisting of three major stages of development. From this perspective, obligate cooking developed gradually in the course of human evolution, with full obligate cooking emerging subsequent to modern humans rather than synchronous with the appearance of Homo erectus as envisioned by the cooking hypothesis.