ABSTRACT
Fire was either the rst or the second chemical reaction to be exploited by humans.* The development of an understanding of how to use and control re ranks with the invention of stone tools as one of the crucial steps forward in the development of early humans. Chapter 3 gives a brief historical overview of the relationship of humans and our hominid ancestors with re. No one knows exactly how or where our ancestors rst discovered re and developed an appreciation of the benets of the energy produced in a re. Very likely this happened independently at many places around the world at different times. Some anthropologists suggest that the knowledge of re may have been discovered, lost or forgotten, and then rediscovered. For the past several hundred thousand years, every culture has used re, although likely not all knew how to make a re as needed. Remarkably, the pygmies in the tropical rain forest on the Andaman Islands (off the south coast of Burma) have, until recent years, carefully tended res ignited by lightning or other natural sources, because they knew no methods for making a re when they needed it.
