Fish fossils show first cooking may have been 600,000 years earlier than thought

The earliest evidence of fire being used to cook was found in 780,000 years ago by Israeli researchers.

It's difficult to prove that an ancient fireplace was used to prepare food when our ancestors first started cooking.

The birth of the culinary arts is believed to have contributed to the expansion of the world because it made food easier to digest.

The first definitive evidence of cooking was found by Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens around 170,000 years ago.

The study was the result of 16 years of work by Irit Zohar, an archeologist at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.

Thousands of fish remains were found at a site called Gesher Benot Ya'aqov.

The site near the banks of the Jordan River was once home to a lake where a treasure trove of ancient fish fossils helped the team of researchers investigate exactly when the first cooks started getting inventive.

It was like facing a puzzle with more and more information until we were able to tell a story about human evolution.

She said that the first clue was found in an area with a lot of teeth.

It's possible that cooking could be related to the fact that fish bones are softer and less strong under 500C.

A colleague of Zohar found burnt flints and other evidence that it was a fireplace.

The study said that most of the teeth were from two large species of carp. The carp were over two metres in length.

The "decisive" proof was derived from studying the teeth.

The quest for food sparked evolution.

The researchers used a technique called X-ray powder Diffraction at the Natural History Museum in London to find out how heating changes the structure of the crystals.

The teeth from the key area of the lake were exposed to a temperature of between 200 and 500C. Well-cooked fish can be found there.

The study suggests that our ancestors may have used an earth oven to cook their fish.

Some 1.7 million years ago, Homo erectus is believed to have mastered fire. They could have eaten the fish next to the fire if you controlled the fire for cooking.

Anas Marrast, an archaeozoologist at the National Museum of Natural History, was not involved in the study.

She said the question about exposure to fire is whether it is about getting rid of remains or wanting to cook.