cooking and evolution

a number of years ago, when my father-in-law was still alive, i sent him an article from the new york times on how cooking had pushed evolution. he was the inventor and first professor of technolution, the study of how technologies have pushed evolution, so i always had an eye out for articles and books that explored such themes. his thinking about the article resulted in the illumination above, which hangs in my kitchen, right near my stove. peter had developed a pictorial language through which he expressed the concepts. all of the drawings have human figures and a circle within a square inspired by davinci's vetruvian man.

harvard anthropologist richard wrangham has written a book called catching fire in which he explores the importance of cooking to human development. peter would have been so interested to read it (he died just after new year's four years ago). what's interesting is that wrangham pushes back the cooking a lot farther in time than has previously been postulated (tho' you can see from peter's illumination that he thought that too). he says that already 1.9-1.8 million years ago, on the cusp between australopithecus and homo erectus, our ancestors began to cook. further, the relationships created around the hearth between men and women were essential for our development into the evolutionary stage we've reached today.

cooking our food, especially meat, gives us quicker access to the nourishment and the energy it brings with it. wrangham argues that our small teeth, small stomach and relatively short intestinal system point to food being cooked much earlier than previously thought. already as homo erectus, we were cooking, he postulates. and it was important that while the men were out hunting, the women were at home tending the fire, so it would be ready when the men returned with the meat. of course, the women also learned to cook roots and things while they were waiting around for the meat to be delivered. i've read only a review of the book, not the actual book, but it's on my amazon wish list for sure and i'm anxious to read more.

interestingly the roles haven't changed all that much. tho' today's men can do some cooking too, it is still a task that falls largely on women's shoulders. and i know that our nightly meal is an essential part of our day, something that mostly i prepare, tho' husband is very helpful in the kitchen. we eat together, as a family, around the table. and although it's much easier on us what with kitchen aid mixers and smeg stoves and such, maybe it's not all that different than our distant ancestors. i do wish peter was here to discuss it.