用火是人类独有的行为能力,对人类的生存演化至关重要。用火熟食改善了人类的营养,导致人类生物特性发生一系列改变,人口、行为、社会关系和生存方式也发生相应变化。用火使人类获得更多的生存资源,并帮助人类改变工具与用具的材料特性,如对石料做热处理,进而发明了陶器和金属工具,开启了文明的历程。人类与火的互动是一个长期、曲折的过程,经历了偶尔利用自然火、时断时续对火控制和使用、有效保存火种乃至人工取火形成用火的日常习惯,进而发展到现代无所不在、不可或缺的复杂用火。人类用火被认为始于直立人的诞生,但目前提取到的证据指向150万年前。早期人类用火证据的提取和论证存在极大的困难和挑战,需要精细的野外工作,做高精度的遗址埋藏和遗物遗迹的空间分析,须采用现代科技手段和模拟实验对地层沉积物和燃烧物证做微形态、成分、色度、磁化率、微体植物化石等尽可能多的宏观和微观分析,排除自然因素的干扰,这样得出的结论才会坚实可信。本文介绍了人类用火的历史、作用和对用火证据提取与分析的思路、方法与技术,通过一系列案例阐述人类用火的方式、发展演化过程和考古学家为破译远古人类用火的谜团所做的努力和取得的成果,以期对这项意义重大但常被忽视的研究起到推动作用。

The paper made an in-depth review on the history of academic research on hominin use of fire. It discussed the significance of fire-use to human evolution and development, presented different hypotheses on the origins of controlled use of fire by human ancestors, and used a series of case-studies to demonstrate the way fire-use evidences were collected and analyzed, and the complicated developmental process of fire-use in human history. Controlled use of fire is a unique behavior and capacity of human beings, and it has played an essential role on hominid survival and evolution. The use of fire led to cooked foods and made nutrition more easily be digested, which in turn brought about a series of biological adjustments and changes in demography, behavioral patterns, survival strategies and social structures to our species. Fire helped hominins procure more resources and modify physical properties of imperative materials, such as heat treatment on lithic raw materials, and gradually brought about the invention of pottery and metal utensils, and eventually human civilization. The history of human-fire interaction is a long and tortuous process, from the occasional use of natural fire, controlled use of fire on and off for hundreds of thousands of years, effective preservation of fire seeds, the making of fire and habitual use of fire, to the omnipresent, indispensable and complex ways of fire-use today. It has been proposed that hominid fire-use history began with the emergence of Homo erectus, but the current available reliable evidence pointed to the time node of ca. 1.5 MaBP. The detection and verification of fire-use evidence of early stage are difficult and challenging, requiring delicate and detailed field excavation and recording, high-resolution taphonomic and spatial information, and all applicable analyses with state-of-the-art technologies. Possible factors of natural agencies in producing fire remains, such as natural fire and post-depositional disturbance, have to be evaluated and terminated. Only after such careful data collection and comprehensive analysis, the evidence presented and conclusions reached can be convincing and accepted.