A recent study indicates that the practice of preserving meat through smoking could be nearly 2 million years old, potentially serving as a primary catalyst for our ancestors’ initial use of fire. Before the advent of electricity and refrigeration, smoking was a vital method for preserving meat.

The ability to create fire is intrinsically linked to human evolution.However,early fire generation demanded considerable time and effort to ignite and maintain. The advantages of preserving meat may have justified this investment.

The study, conducted by researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel, builds upon their previous work connecting human evolution to the hunting of large animals and the subsequent reduction in the size of those animals over time.