Fire may have contributed to the development of complex human language

Scientists believe that controlling fire not only changed the lives of ancient humans through cooking and making more advanced tools, but it also allowed them to stay awake for about four additional hours after sunset. The hours the group members spent around the fire became a rare opportunity to meet without being occupied with pressing daily tasks.

According to Professor Catherine Hobbiter, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of St Andrews, storytelling sessions around the fire may have marked the beginning of a more complex and abstract style of communication.

This idea differs from traditional theories that assume that language gradually evolved from the calls and gestures used by primates. Recent research indicates that chimpanzees, for example, can teach group members to make tools, coordinate foraging, and organize social relationships without a system resembling human language.

Hopayter says this raises a fundamental question: If primates are able to meet their practical needs without language, what need led humans to develop it?

Living around a fire may provide part of the answer. A study of Ju/Hwansi hunters in South Africa showed that daytime conversations focused on practical matters, while hours spent around the fire at night were mostly devoted to storytelling.

Scientists believe that this shift may have been an important point in the evolution of language. Simple gestures and means of communication were sufficient to meet practical needs during the day, while night sessions provided room to talk about events and experiences that went beyond what was happening at the same moment.

The potential role of fire is not limited to providing time for the meeting. The study indicates that its light may also have helped keep people awake without disrupting sleep to the extent that blue light might cause. The flash of fire also stimulates activity in the visual cortex of the brain, and people gathering around it may lead to a type of neural synchronization associated with empathy, social bonding, and improved cooperation.

Professor Nathaniel Dominy, an anthropologist at Dartmouth College, says that these properties associated with firelight have not yet received enough research to understand their impact on human communication.

Scientists cannot know what the first stories told by human ancestors were about, but they suggest that the hours that ancient humans spent around the fire may have provided the social and temporal environment that helped language develop from a means of practical communication to a more complex system capable of conveying ideas and stories.