Chapter 8 Ode to Fire①

Have you ever seen flames flying over a campfire in the wild?The dark night sky and the bright red flames will arouse your poetic reverie and lead you to the distant past... ① Originally published in "Science Times" magazine, No. 2, 1980. Have you ever seen the steel flower splashing in the steelmaking furnace?The blazing fire is shining with the light of human wisdom. Seeing it, you will be excited, inspired and proud, and run towards the future with confidence... fire! The greatest element in nature. fire! The weapons used by primitive humans to transform nature, conquer nature, and advance history.

However, fire, this miraculous and incredible force of nature, once troubled the state of mind of our distant ancestors. Human beings have been under the test of harsh natural conditions since their birth: severe cold and hot summer, violent wind and rain, poisonous insects and beasts, and indefinite hunger and fullness, all of which threaten their survival all the time.And the wildfire that sweeps everything! --In the eyes of primitive people, perhaps it is the most vicious monster. Where is there no fire in nature?The volcano erupts and the lava overflows, like fire dragons rushing straight forward, devouring everything it touches; forest fires triggered by lightning, and spontaneous combustion of rotten leaves and coal seams often cause prairie fires... In this smoky landscape In the midst of the fire, the flames rolled, causing the beasts to flee in all directions, and the vibrant dense forest was instantly reduced to a piece of scorched earth and ashes.

Our ancestors were overwhelmed and terrified in the face of this wondrous monster with seemingly infinite magical powers. However, human beings who have the courage to explore have grown up in the struggle with nature, and after long years of exploration and practice, they have finally conquered and mastered fire. How did man conquer fire?This is a subject that has not yet been fully understood. The natural curiosity and desire to explore of primitive people overcame their fear and timidity, so that they occasionally came to the fire scene after the catastrophe.The scent of the charred wild animals stimulated their appetites, even though the squeaking meat burned their fingers, but the delicious enjoyment made them want to leave for a long time.

Perhaps, they will pick up a branch that is still burning, as if they have caught a "monster", and they will be surprised; Feel elusive.The warmth of the fire (if it is not too hot) and the light of the fire will inspire them to use their poor imagination to explore and conjecture... After countless explorations, experiments and accumulation of long years of experience, people finally realized that fire Not only is it terrifying, but it also has its advantages, so people mastered fire. If it is said that the first stone tool production freed the ancestors of human beings from the shackles of the animal kingdom, then the conquest of fire turned human beings into giants!

Humans' conquest of fire was probably first realized in regions with lower temperatures, and it is likely that changes in the earth's climate—the advent of the first ice age—accelerated this process. In the existing archaeological data, there is no trace of using fire, the predecessor of Homo erectus (formerly known as "ape man") - Australopithecus (formerly translated as "Australopithecus").As far as we know so far, the earliest history of humans using fire can be traced back at least 1.7 million years ago, when the Yuanmou people and the owners of the Xihoudu site lived.In the layers where their remains or cultural relics were buried, a large amount of charcoal and burnt bones were found. Many scientists believe that they were the first people to use fire.This means that the earliest remains of human fire use have been found on the mainland of our country!As for the extent to which they have mastered fire, more evidence has yet to be found to explain.

By 500,000 to 1,000,000 years ago, primitive people had left traces of stoves in caves.For example, the Escal Cave in southern France, the Vitus Zolos site in Hungary, and the Peking Man site in Zhoukoudian, Beijing, my country.Standing at the gates of these former cave homes, you can smell the aroma of roasted deer legs... It is from the accumulation of these ruins that precious information is transmitted. Homo erectus is not only a great "pirate" in nature. Fireman", and has developed into a great "fire trainer" who can manage the fire and preserve the fire! In the lives of primitive people, the role of fire has become more and more obvious, and the preservation of fire has become more and more the most concerned issue in the group.

According to modern ethnographic records, not long ago, many tribes, such as the Pegmies and Andamans in central Africa, did not know how to make fire manually.They still keep the spark or raging flame for a long time according to the old method many thousands of years ago, and never let it go out.When many primitive tribes migrated, the first thing they carried was the fire, and the most important thing was to protect the fire. Before liberation, the Kucong people in Yunnan protected the fire to an amazing level: their children would let the fire "smolder" to preserve the fire from the age of four or five; There are never any people around, in order to keep the fire from going out, especially on stormy nights, when the whole family sits up and surrounds the firepit with their naked bodies, protecting the flickering flames... many The old man Kucong still has black and red scars on their chests, which were scorched while protecting the fire in a hurry!In fact, they have already learned to make fire by friction, but the careful protection of fire is still the same.As for our primitive ancestors who didn't know how to make fire, they don't know how much they cherish and love fire.We only need to look at the ruins of the Beijingers. The ash layer they left behind is as thick as 6 meters, with a lot of burnt stones and bones mixed in the middle. It can be seen that the Beijingers maintained the fire and protected the fire. It was painstaking.

As time goes by, in the process of using natural people for a long time, people have increased their intelligence and become more intelligent. The descendants of Homo erectus discovered that they had mastered the method of artificially making fire, especially the method of making fire by friction. Making fire by friction is a great creation in the history of mankind, which has artificially realized the conversion from mechanical motion to heat energy. The use of fire produced revolutionary changes in the life of primitive people. The cooked food started. Cooked food expands the variety of food.For example, it was after fire was widely used that fish and seafood became the daily food of people.Cooked food also increases the edible part of food, especially meat. After being grilled by fire, it not only removes the fishy smell, makes it delicious and more nutritious, but also softens the food, making it easier to chew and digest and absorb in the stomach.Thus ending the primitive state of human beings "drinking blood like hair".

Cooked food enhances a person's physique for physical development.In particular, the development of the brain provided more raw materials; cooked food weakened the chewing function, making the teeth smaller, the jaw shortened, and the appearance became more and more like modern people. Primitives noticed that even the most ferocious beasts were afraid of fire, so fire was gradually used to defend against the attacks of ferocious beasts, removing the greatest threat to human existence.They also use fire to expel the beasts in the caves and win a living place for themselves. During the period of Homo erectus, the evidence that fire was used for hunting came from the Ambulon Valley in Spain. In the strata 400,000 years ago, many things that were burned to varying degrees were found, and charcoal and ashes were scattered in a large area.There are also many dismembered elephant skeletons, along with many stone tools.It is not difficult to speculate that the ancient elephant herd was driven by Homo erectus into the former swamp with fire, trapped and hunted.

Fire warms people and helps humans survive the severe cold. Fire can also drive away moisture in caves and improve living conditions. Fire brings light and increases people's courage to fight. Fire gives people light, prolongs the day, and increases people's working hours. Fire itself is also a labor tool and weapon. It can be used not only for hunting, but also for processing other tools and weapons. For example, the tip of a wooden spear will become hard after being burned by fire; Splashing them with cold water will cause them to disintegrate and split into broken stone pieces suitable for making various stone tools; people have burned the trunk of a tree with fire, and then planed it with a stone ax to make canoes. With boats and fishing nets, people Expand the field of production to vast waters.

The further development of primitive agriculture is also inseparable from fire.The so-called "slash-and-burn farming", although very extensive, played an important role in the settlement of people. The earliest use of human beings in physical and chemical changes was also realized with the help of fire-here we are talking about the invention of pottery.In the past, using stones and bones to make tools was just changing the form of the original materials, but people changed the nature of the raw material for pottery-clay by firing pottery, creating new materials that have never been seen in nature.The invention of pottery provided the conditions for holding water, cooking and storing food for the settled life of human beings; with the utensils for cooking, the level of cooked food was pushed to a new height. With the development of the original pottery industry, people realized that the quality of pottery has a lot to do with the heat, and thus invented the pottery kiln.The pottery kiln has raised the ability of human beings to use fire to a new height, and the improved pottery kiln can obtain a higher furnace temperature, which finally led to the smelting of metals, and the emergence of metal tools, creating a new era in human history. It was through the use of fire, combined with the invention of shelter and clothing, that people adapted to live in any climate, spread into previously uninhabited areas, and broke into all corners of the world. In 1970, a Paleolithic site was discovered, located on the left bank of the Bililk River in the Indigir Basin at 70° north latitude, which proved that people had reached the Arctic Circle about 12,000 years ago! Through the mastery and use of fire, people have passed the ignorant age of human history and entered the barbaric age starting from pottery.In the further development of the metal smelting industry, people invented ironware, which effectively promoted the development of social productivity. fire! Its conquest is the first and greatest victory of man over the natural world. The primitive people's conquest and mastery of fire laid a solid foundation for today's high-level development of human material civilization and created indelible feats.The pleasant memory of primitive man's great victory over the natural world still exists in the ancient legends and myths of many nations, and in various religious activities that worship fire. In ancient Greek mythology, Prometheus, the god of heaven, stole fire from heaven for mankind and was severely punished by Zeus, the king of the gods. This is a reflection of the struggle between man and nature.In ancient my country, there is a legend about Suirenshi, who said that the sage Suirenshi accidentally saw a bird pecking a tree trunk, sparks came out, and was inspired by this to invent fire by drilling wood.This story is not as harsh as Prometheus in Greek mythology who suffered for stealing fire, but it bears the imprint of ancient real life. Prometheus and Suirenshi are heroes in ancient mythology, and their deeds are an ode to the first conquest of fire by human beings.Today, the use of fire by human beings has reached a new peak, the fire is red, the rocket is flying, and the artificial planet is invited to travel into space, singing a new song of victory for human beings to conquer nature! Man conquers fire, fire tempers man, and man becomes the most talented rational creature in the interstellar world--Shizai, the fire will never go out, as long as there are people, any miracle in the world can be created!