The Human LineTechnology Habitual fire and cooking c. 400,000 years agoMajor Hearths become common. Cooked food is easier to digest, releasing energy for bigger brains and gathering people together. ▲ MattersSaveShareTrace roots Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking Community notesLoading notes… Learn more ranked by votesDocumentjournals.uchicago.eduFire for a reason: barbecue at Middle Pleistocene Qesem Cave, Israel (Barkai et al., Current Anthropology 2017) ↗Editor's pickBookRichard WranghamCatching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human ↗Editor's pickVideoSearch on YouTubehow cooking made us human ↗Editor's pick