170,000-Year-Old Cooked Starch Found in South Africa

[wnylib]

2. Makes sense that early humans cooked

their veggies. 900,000 to a million years ago, Homo erectus in Asia was controlling fire. The various hominins that preceded Homo sapiens all descended from Homo erectus.

Our ancestors might have used fire first for light and/or heat before cooking with it, but I wouldn't be surprised if archaeologists eventually find even older evidence of cooked plants than this article reports.