Early humans cooked up their first hot meals more than 1.9m years ago, long before our ancient ancestors left Africa to colonise the world, scientists claim.

Researchers at Harvard University traced the origins of cooking back through the human family tree after studying tooth sizes and the feeding behaviour of monkeys, apes and modern humans.

They concluded that cooking was commonplace among Homo erectus, our flat-faced, thick-browed forebears, and probably originated early in that species’ reign, if not before in more primitive humans. ‘This is part of an emerging body of science that shows cooking itself is important for our biology; that is, we are biologically adapted for cooking food,’ said Chris Organ, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard.

The advent of cooking was one of the most crucial episodes in the human story, allowing our ancestors to broaden their diet and extract more calories from their food. Because it softened food, it also spelled an end to the days of endless chewing. There has been disagreement among experts on the issue. Some of the most convincing evidence for human use of fire is more recent, dating to around 400,000 years ago, though older claims exist, including the remnants of a campfire in Israel […]