# What if we had never discovered fire? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 30, 2022, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010 "2022-03-30T20:59:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2022, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/21 "2022-03-31T20:36:15Z")
Here is a realistic alternate reality. Imagine the O\_2 concentration is only 15%, but humans and all other life has evolved to thrive on that, but I believe that that level of O\_2 will not support flames. Then humans will not have fire. I still think I would be sitting in the dark in a cold cave in Africa. And, BTW, if the O\_2 level goes much above 25%, fire becomes uncontrollable. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2022, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/22 "2022-03-31T22:40:51Z")
@Exapno_Mapcase: The Scientific American article’s talking about animal fats. They’re discussing scavenging versus hunting behavior, not vegan or even vegetarian diets versus diets including significant animal products. The Inverse article acknowledges some meat consumption, and ignores insects and eggs. The study that they’re discussing is subscription-only. I guess I don’t have much of a concept in my head for “mostly vegan”; IME while there’s some disagreement about things like honey or yeast, the whole thing about vegans is they don’t eat anything derived from or otherwise directly requiring animal death. “Primarily plant-based diet” I’ll grant you; in some places in the world humans most likely ate primarily plant-based diets all the way through. To what extent we needed meats/animal fats to sustain our brain growth doesn’t seem to be a settled question; but I don’t think (though I might be wrong) anybody’s claiming that they needed to be the bulk of the diet. > [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > I’m just saying that for the sake of this hypothetical you can’t make firm claims about how we _would_ have evolved, since we’re not close to sure about how we _did_ . Fair enough. The topic’s in MPSIMS, after all, not in Factual Questions. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2022, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/23 "2022-03-31T22:57:15Z")
We wouldn’t be here. Non-human hominids that _did_ come up with fire would have easily outcompeted us via better nutrition and weapons. _Homo sapiens_ would be a footnote in history, like Neanderthals and the other hominids that our species murdered into extinction. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2022, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/24 "2022-04-01T05:16:15Z")
> [@lissener](#): > > imagine the history of our species without the ability to light things on fire. You know chimpanzees? That. > [@dtilque](#): > > Fire can also change the nature of stone, although I’ve forgotten the details, even which kind of stone. All I remember is that it improves some stone tools for some uses. Quartzite and [silcrete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silcrete) are much easier to make into tools if they’re heat-treated > [@](#): > > I think it may require the stone have fat or oil on it before firing. No, just heated in/under a fire. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2022, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/25 "2022-04-01T13:08:58Z")
No fire? That humans would have had to spend a long time digesting their food to get the calories. They would have needed more guts and smaller brains, like chimpanzees and gorillas. Would they thrive on the grasslands without fire to deter predators and be able to hunt? They would probably be confined to the forests, handing from trees, like other hominids. Man would not be King of the Swingers. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/bfIoI3DNx6c/maxresdefault.jpg "The Jungle Book - I Wanna Be Like You") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfIoI3DNx6c) ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2022, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/26 "2022-04-01T13:31:43Z")
I thought this thread frivolous until I began thinking about early humans and how wide spread and isolated they were. Groups isolated in desert regions would never see natural fire from lightning. Beside the fact that storms are rare, there are no forest to catch fire from lightning strikes, so it would have been very possible for them to have no idea that fire even existed. So, people like that would have had to depend on plants or uncooked meat/fish. They would have no way to forge anything, so they could have no metal tools or, for that matter, anything made from metal. What primitive tools they had would have been roughly chopped out of stone by other stone and tied to wooden handles by dried rawhide. They’d still be in the animal powered stage of transportation because there would be no propulsion of any kind. Warfare would still be in the sword/spear/crossbow era of development. In short, there would have been no meaningful advancement in human civilization. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2022, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/27 "2022-04-01T13:31:55Z")
Even with access to the convenience and wide variety of foods available in the modern world, followers of raw foodism still struggle to get sufficient nutrients: [Reality Check: 5 Risks of a Raw Vegan Diet - Scientific American](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reality-check-5-risks-of/) For early humans, life without cooking would have been impossible. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2022, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/28 "2022-04-01T14:36:10Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Groups isolated in desert regions Without fire, early humans would not have survived in deserts. Have you ever been in a desert at night? Early human sites in Africa range from tropical to temperate, and either lakeside or seaside. Only _after_ they have fire do we see them in the more arid interior. > [@zimaane](#): > > For early humans, life without cooking would have been impossible. Early humans were not vegans. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2022, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/29 "2022-04-01T15:41:36Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > Groups isolated in desert regions would never see natural fire from lightning. Beside the fact that storms are rare, there are no forest to catch fire from lightning strikes, so it would have been very possible for them to have no idea that fire even existed. It isn’t only forests that burn; grasses and shrubs burn just fine in relatively dry conditions. And nobody would have been living in a desert so dry that nothing was growing there that could burn; because they wouldn’t have had anything to eat. > [@zimaane](#): > > Even with access to the convenience and wide variety of foods available in the modern world, followers of raw foodism still struggle to get sufficient nutrients: > > [Reality Check: 5 Risks of a Raw Vegan Diet > > For early humans, life without cooking would have been impossible. They wouldn’t have been vegan. They would, at the very least, have been eating insects, and whatever eggs they could get their hands on; and almost certainly eating some meat, as our closest surviving relatives do. And all the other predators eat their meat and fish raw; for that matter, even modern humans sometimes still do. Again, whether and to what extent we needed cooked meat, and/or other cooked foods, to support our larger brains is an open question – though there would have been some brain growth needed for us to be able to control cooking fires in the first place, so I don’t see how it could have been the impetus for the start of increased brain size. But the comparison isn’t to a vegan diet. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010/30 "2022-04-01T16:29:15Z")
Well, this entire discussion requires a suspension of belief that is epic in proportion, so I got into the spirit of things. LOL [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-we-had-never-discovered-fire/962010.md?page=1)