Researchers at Harvard University have deduced that early humans cooked up their first hot meals more than 1.9m years ago.
(They base their findings on tooth size and how much time was spent actually eating (cooked food requires less chewing than raw). Homo erectus, who emerged in Africa around 1.9m years ago, spent 6.1% of its time eating and Neanderthals, spent 7% of their time, but more primitive species, such as Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, who emerged before Homo erectus and the Neanderthals, spent 7.2% and 9.5% of their day eating. If the estimates are right, it suggests they may have been less accomplished cooks than Homo erectus and the Neanderthals. Maybe the English are more closely related to them.)