EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
A Brief History of Humankind
Dr. Yuval Noah Harari, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E The Importance of Fire and Cooking Notes taken on August 18, 2013 by Edward Tanguay |
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humans for most of their existence had large brains, the ability to produce and use tools and had complex social structures
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however, they were weak and marginal in the ecosystem
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yet in the last 100,000 years, humans ascended to the top of the food chain and became the most powerful and influential animals
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how did humans make the jump to the top of the food chain?
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one skill that helped them do this was the domestication of fire
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we know that by 300,000 years ago, some species of humans including the Homo neanderthalensis were using fire on a daily basis
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source of light
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source of warmth
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source of weapons against dangerous animals
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method of hunting
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use fire to encircle and trap animals
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most important aspect of fire was that it enabled humans to cook
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"the ability to cook with fire opened up entire new sections in the supermarket of nature"
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many foods that humans cannot digests raw could now be eaten: wheat, rye, rice, and potatoes
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pigs and cows can digest these foods raw, but not humans
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cooking and baking with fire took over part of the digesting that humans were not able to, so that they could benefit from the calories and vitamins from these foods
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cooking kills germs and parasites
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reduced the time that humans had to invest to consume food and the energy which needed to be expended to digest food.
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link between body of animal and power
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in general, the power of the animal is in relation to their body
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in some ways animals use forces outside their bodies, e.g. eagle use columns of hot air
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but they cannot control it
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humans, on the other hand, can choose when and where to light a fire
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when humans domesticated fire, it broke the link between the size of the animal and the power of the animal
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a single woman who carries a torch can burn down an entire forest and kill hundreds of animals in a matter of hours
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even after humans domesticated fire (Homo neanderthalensis) they were still not the most powerful animal in the world, they would have to wait until the appearance and spread of homo sapiens
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correct:
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influencial
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influential