Wednesday 3 June 2015

Could Chimpanzees Learn to Cook

I was intrigued to see an article on the BBC web site under the title Cooking skills may have emerged millions of years ago with a link to the original paper Cognitive capacities for cooking in Chimpanzees (unfortunately behind a pay wall). The subject raises an interesting question - as a more primitive action to cooking related to storing food for use later, or processing it in some way. I am wondering what the first archaeological evidence for such activities. For instance, when did the preparation of dried food - either fruit, meat (biltong) and fish really begin?  Does anyone know?

2 comments:

  1. This article is not behind a pay wall. I was just able to download the PDF.

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  2. When I drafted the article it was behind a paywall - but it may be that the Royal Society realised the interest that was generated by the BBC news item and removed the pay wall. I will definitely be having a look at the original article - possibly after the weekend,

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