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It is difficult to imagine the life of a modern person without the use of fire. Thanks to him, people live in comfortable conditions - in warm houses, lighted rooms, eat delicious food and daily use objects created with fire. The process of obtaining and subjugating fire was very complex and lengthy. Thanks to ancient man, we can use this resource.
The role of fire in the life of primitive man
One and a half million years ago, man was able to subjugate fire. Ancient man was able to create himself lighting, a warm home, delicious food and protection from predators.
Man-taming fire is a rather long process. According to legends, the first fire that a person could use was heavenly fire. The phoenix bird, Prometheus, Hephaestus, the god Agni, the firebird - they were gods and creatures bringing fire to people. Man deified natural phenomena - lightning and volcanic eruptions. He made fire by lighting torches from other, natural ignitions. The first attempts to produce fire gave a person the opportunity to warm up in the winter, illuminate territories at night and defend against the constant attacks of predatory animals.
After a long-term use of natural fire, a person had the need to independently extract this resource, because natural fire was not always available.
The first way to get a flame was by striking a spark. Person for a long time watched how the collision of some objects causes a small spark, and decided to find a use for it. For this process, people had special devices made of prismatic stones, which were firefighters. The man struck the fires with rough prismatic knives, causing a spark. Later, the fire was produced in a slightly different way - they used flint and flint. Flammable sparks set fire to moss and fluff.
Friction was another method of making fire. People quickly rotated dry branches and sticks inserted into a tree hole between their palms. This method of extracting the flame was used by the peoples of Australia, Oceania, Indonesia, in the Kukukuku and Mbowambov tribes.
Later, man learned to make fire by drilling with a beam. This method made life easier for the ancient man - no longer had to put a lot of effort, rotating the stick with your palms. The burning hearth could be used for 15 minutes. From it, people set fire to thin birch bark, dry moss, tow and sawdust.
Thus, fire played a leading role in the development of mankind. In addition to the fact that he became a source of light, warmth and protection, he also influenced the intellectual development of ancient people.
Thanks to the use of fire, a person had a need and an opportunity for constant activity - it had to be obtained and maintained. At the same time, it was necessary to ensure that he was not transferred to the houses and was not extinguished by a sudden downpour. It was at this point that the division of labor between men and women began to take shape.
Fire served as an indispensable tool in the manufacture and processing of weapons and dishes. And most importantly, he gave man the opportunity to develop new lands.
The role of fire in the life of a modern person
The life of a modern person cannot be imagined without fire. Almost everything that people use is based on fire. Thanks to him, the houses are warm and light. A person uses the energy of fire in everyday life. People cook, wash, clean. Light, electricity, heating and gas - all this would not be possible without a small spark.
The energy of fire is also used in various enterprises. In order to make a car, an airplane, a diesel locomotive and an ordinary fork, metal is needed. It is with the help of fire that man extracts it - melts the ore.
An ordinary lighter burns using a slightly modified method of the ancient people - improved fire. Gas lighters use a mechanical spark, while electric lighters use an electric spark.
Fire is used in almost every human activity - ceramics, metallurgy, glass making, steam engines, chemical industry, transportation and nuclear power.
There are three things that you can look at endlessly: how the fire burns, how the water flows, and how others work, which is what crowds of onlookers do at the fire, unable to take their eyes off what is happening. And all because fire really has a magical effect, attracting attention. It is not for nothing that at all times the power of fire was used in various rituals. For example, burning alive is one of the most painful types of execution in ancient times. And today the culmination of Maslenitsa is the burning of a scarecrow, a symbol of the departure of winter and the onset of spring.
Now it will not be difficult to get fire, strike it with a match and it’s ready, but in ancient times, fire was worth its weight in gold, it was produced with great difficulty, and it was much easier to maintain the fire than to make it anew. And woe to the one who did not keep track of the fire, because according to the laws of that time, only death could atone for his guilt. Therefore, the fire, in the form of a bonfire, was maintained for decades.
Today we can only guess how the fire appeared. According to one version, lightning struck a tree, and it caught fire, so for the first time people met with fire. Then, most likely, with the help of a burning branch, they learned to transfer fire over certain distances. And only then they began to make fire using a wooden chip, into which a stick was inserted, moss was placed next to it and the stick was rotated between the palms until the moss began to smolder.
In the future, a flint appeared - this is such an iron plate, flint and a wick, in order for the wick to smolder, it was necessary to strike the flint with a plate.
Matches were invented relatively recently in the 19th century, but even today, in remote places on our planet, there are tribes that are still at the stage of development when fire is produced by rubbing or hitting various objects against each other.
Initially, fire was used to form smoke, with the help of which they got rid of annoying insects, and then they appreciated the advantage of food cooked on fire.
Fire is incandescent gases and plasma emitted during the combustion of combustible material, as a result chemical reaction or when high voltage current and combustible material interact. Fire can become both man's best friend and worst enemy... Recently, the so-called fire-show has become very popular. The fire show is not just entertainment, but serious art - dangerous and exciting. Fire is used for illumination, heating, cooking, signaling, protection from animals in the wild, etc. But it also has tremendous destructive power in the form of an uncontrolled combustion process - fire.
In case of a sudden fire in the apartment, a working fire extinguisher is required. If you didn't have one at hand, you need to know that there are three ways to extinguish the fire:
1. Remove what has caught fire.
2. Cut off the oxygen supply, for example, cover the fire with a blanket.
3. Eliminate the heat, lower its temperature, with water, sand or foam.
Observe fire safety rules and remember that there is no smoke without fire!
Niramin - Jun 13th, 2016
Primitive people learned to turn the element of fire in favor of their life about one and a half million years ago. And before that, they, like all animals, were afraid to even approach the burning flame, although they were familiar with fire firsthand. Such natural phenomena as a lightning strike, a volcanic eruption, forest fires in drought, delivered only grief to primitive tribes, burning everything in their path.
Having tamed the fire, people realized what advantages it gives. They used it in cooking, used it as a source of heat and light on a dark night, the bright flame scared away wild animals from the dwelling, and the smoke drove away insects. Later, primitive people learned how to burn clay for making dishes and melt metal with fire when creating tools and hunting.
The fire was sacredly kept, supported around the clock so as not to go out. For a long time after the flame began to be used in everyday life, primitive people did not know how to get it. First, they learned how to extract fire by rubbing two pieces of wood against each other. Later, they began to use the technology of hitting stone on stone in order to create a spark. And even later, they learned how to make a chase, which greatly facilitated the production of fire.
Scientists have proved that with the use of cooked food, primitive people began to develop mentally faster, life expectancy increased, and many inventions appeared. The "domestication" of fire is considered one of the most significant discoveries in the history of all mankind.
Ancient ways of producing fire by man - see pictures and video:
Video: FIRE WITHOUT MATCHES ISKRA 02 STONE ON STONE
Video: fire by friction drilling with a bow
Since ancient times, people have used fire. In some caves in Europe, Africa and other continents, people existed more than hundreds, thousands of years ago, a vivid proof of this - burnt bones, the so-called "evidence", which testify that someone made a fire in the caves. Many historians have always been interested in the question of the use of fire by ancient man. However, the most intriguing thing is how the fire appeared; in the caves of people, that is, how exactly they learned to use it. A lot of guesses have been built on this topic, from mythical and religious, to purely pragmatic ones, based on geographical methods.
Scientists agree on one thing, first, the first people learned to use it, and only then breed independently. ; The appearance of fire among people was episodic, very rare, for example, lightning strikes a tree trunk or volcanic eruptions. In Zoroastrianism (the cult of fire in Iran and parts of other countries), before the advent of Islam, fire was considered alive.
Because, as in the desert, sometimes a fountain of oil burst out and caught fire under high temperatures, for primitive man - it was nothing more than a miracle, so the cult of fire put down great roots in the peoples who inhabited the present Middle East until the Middle Ages. But how people made fire is a rather complicated question. Indeed, in the desert, it could appear out of the ground, in the forests, it could arise during a forest fire. In most cases, until a person learned to create it himself, the fire from a burning tree was constantly maintained for tens of years! And the loss of it, in practice, meant death from the cold for a tribe or group of people.
There are a great many guesses how exactly a person lit the first fire on his own, but in principle, it is not so important how he lit it. It is much more important how a person uses fire for his needs. Primitive people began to use fire not only for cooking, but also for processing various materials. Starting with the burning of clay pots, continuing with the melting of copper, and subsequently iron.
The most common theory, as a person noticed that copper and iron can be smelted, is the littered pieces of copper near the fire (looking like ordinary stones), which the person paid attention to. Individual "stones" (which turned out to be copper) began to melt, however, when a person removed the fire from them, they solidified and took the form that was formed by himself. Over time, it became unimportant for a person how the fire burns, because he himself learned to kindle it with the help of sparks from stones or flint.
Although, in different parts of our planet; they could kindle it in different ways. Indians living in Alaska rubbed two stones with sulfur, then simply hit them against each other, and then threw the burning stone into dry dust and branches. In Hindustan and on the territory of present-day China, they beat a piece of clay against a bamboo stick, and the Eskimos beat a piece of quartz against a piece of pyrite, receiving a huge sheaf of sparks. Most Indians in; made a fire even under the conquistadors, by rubbing two sticks. In any case, every civilization on the planet, sooner or later, learned to make a fire, it became a kind of test for every future nation for the development of intelligence.
A good one and a half million years ago, man tamed fire. It was, perhaps, the most outstanding event in the history of mankind: fire gave light and warmth, drove away wild animals and made meat tastier. He was a great magician: he led from savagery to civilization, from nature to culture.
The history of human development is the history of human survival in the surrounding world. One can argue for a long time about what is the root cause or driving force of the development of human civilization, but there is no doubt that it is closely related to the desire of a person to comfortably adapt to environment... Caution, a sense of danger, the desire to avoid death are inherent not only in man, but also in other inhabitants of the planet Earth. Animals also have some initial information about the properties of the surrounding bodies. The fact that stones are sharp, fire is hot, water is liquid, etc., animals, like children, "learn" from experience. But the ability to use, for example, a sharp stone to work another stone or stick, that is, it is advisable to combine in the process of labor the known properties of tools and raw materials, is an exclusively human quality. Such qualities have developed in people and are manifested by them consciously, and are also embedded in their subconsciousness in the form of instincts. Man on Earth gained superiority over animals due to the fact that he was able to quickly adapt to the environment, to changes in nature and use natural forces to his advantage.
We are interested not only in the history of the development of man as a biological species, but in how man mastered the natural world and created completely new world - the world of energy technology.
We do not know when exactly happened, perhaps the greatest event on the million-year path of the transformation of our ancient ancestor into modern man is that people mastered fire and learned how to get it. Reverently, primitive man bowed his knees before nature (Fig. 2.1). But having subjugated fire - one of the most formidable elemental forces, having made it an obedient instrument of his life at a very early stage of development, man felt himself not a slave of nature, but its equal partner.
The first fire that primitive man used for his needs was heavenly fire. This is indicated by the legends and myths of almost all the peoples of the world, their characters are Hephaestus of the Greeks, Prometheus, the phoenix of the ancient Romans, the Vedic god Agni of the Hindus, the firebird of the North American Indians. In all these creations of folk fantasy, the view of fire as an element of heavenly origin is vividly reflected. Lightning caused fire on earth, although it is possible that in some places people became acquainted with fire and its use in volcanic eruptions.
In the life of primitive man, fire played an important role - he was his best assistant. The fire warmed him and protected him from the winter cold, the fire made his food edible and tastier, the fire shone on him in the dark evening and morning hours, especially in the long winter months, he burned his pottery and utensils with fire, people resorted to him to make metal tools and weapons, with fires, he drove wild animals away from his dwelling at night.
The mastery of fire made man immeasurably stronger. People worshiped fire as a deity (Fig. 2.2), it was kept for centuries, because at first a person did not know how to produce fire, he lit it from another fire - during forest fires or volcanic eruptions. It can be assumed that the most stable sources of fire were volcanoes, or rather, entire volcanic zones. Intense volcanic activity on Earth as part of the anthropogen coincides with the early stages of the ancient Paleolithic. It was almost ten times the power and number of centers of volcanic activity in our era.
Other, but less important, sources of fire in nature were forest (Fig.2.3) and steppe fires, spontaneous combustion due to the activity of microorganisms, fires of trees from a lightning strike, as well as the eternal flame of natural gas wells, which is the most stable source of fire in areas rich in oil deposits. ...
And yet the most reliable source of fire in the period when they already knew how to use it, but did not yet know how to get it, was its transfer from person to person.
Fire played a social role in bringing wild human groups closer together (Figure 2.4). The need for fire pushed others to search for some groups, led to mutual assistance and unification. Ancient primitive people often camped near a ravine or high river bank (Fig. 2.5). When changing camp, primitive people carried with them burning brands or embers. The transfer of fire later became a custom followed for a long time by the descendants of primitive people. It was observed by travelers of the 18th and 19th centuries in Australia, America, Africa, Polynesia.
How long ago man first dipped the wick into a bowl filled with animal fat, turning it into a lamp, it is impossible to say, but primitive lamps carved out of chalk or sandstone are dated by scientists to about 80,000 BC. Ceramic lamps that are about 10,000 years old have been found in Iraq.
The Bible testifies that candles made of the same animal fat burned in Solomon's temple as early as the 10th century BC. Since then, not a single divine service has done without them, but they found wide application in everyday life only in the Middle Ages.
The minimum standard of living at which the work of the heart, lungs, and the minimum of digestion are maintained, requires a certain amount of energy. In cold weather, a little more energy is needed to heat the body. Walking and other moderate activities are more demanding, and vigorous exercise requires even more energy. With severe physical work we have to consume much more food than is necessary for the work itself, because the efficiency of our body is only about 25%, and the remaining 75% is spent on heat.
To maintain a minimum living standard healthy person needs about 2 kilocalories per day; swimming or football requires an additional 0.5 kilocalories per hour, and with eight hours of hard physical work, another 2 kilocalories are required per day.
Mental labor requires very little immediate expenditure of energy - the mind is skilled, but apparently not greedy.
The same custom was observed by early travelers, wandering around America after its discovery. The North American Indians kept unquenchable bonfires at the entrance to their huts, and carried smoldering tinder with them when crossing. No matter how far away the time when primitive people lived, but in the legends of ancient cultural peoples, in some customs and rituals, vague memories of maintaining unquenchable fires have been preserved. Carrying out excavations in the Zhou-Kou-dian cave near Beijing, archaeologists discovered traces of a fire that burned continuously at the same place for five hundred thousand years, and, for example, in ancient Rome, women priestesses kept an unquenchable fire on the altar of the goddess Vesta, although the true the meaning of this custom has long been forgotten. And in modern Christian churches "inextinguishable" lamps are burning, and the believers who keep the fire in them do not suspect that they are repeating the meaningless custom of our distant ancestors, to whom fire seemed to be something mysterious and incomprehensible.
The period of natural fire, obtained from nature and sustained in hearths, was probably quite long.
Since the sky did not always put its fire at the disposal of a person, then, naturally, he decided to call it himself. And now a great new discovery, the first step towards mastering the forces of nature - man himself has learned to obtain this beneficent gift for himself in various ways. And here, again, nature was the mentor.
It is possible that the impetus for the invention of the first firefighter, which is now sometimes found among peoples standing at the lower stage of culture, was given by the observation that showed that some stones strike sparks when they hit certain objects. For making fire by striking sparks, primitive people had special devices. This is confirmed by the finds of devices of a peculiar shape, made of thick prismatic stones, found during excavations of dwellings and tombs next to pieces of weathered sulfur pyrite, which were nothing more than ancient fire sites. Thick prismatic knives, the edges of which were deliberately roughened, served as a strike stone for these fire places. In later fire places, the fire was obtained in this way: the flint, resting in one hand, tears away from the flint sliding along it with the longitudinal edge of the flint (later the flint was replaced by a piece of steel), the smallest particles, which, oxidizing during their passage in the air, glow and ignite the exposed dry moss and etc.
This method was used mainly in countries with arid climates, where the atmospheric humidity is minimal. A very small and short spark arising from the impact of flint on flint is very sensitive to the state of the atmosphere. True, there are indications of making fire in this way in tropical countries. For example, according to the testimony of ethnographers, the production of fire by striking flint against flint exists among the hunting and agricultural groups of the Yagua, who now live in the upper reaches of the Amazon. The fire is produced by men, and the women are carrying fuel and maintaining the flame in the hearth. The carving process is very difficult and requires, under favorable conditions, from half an hour to an hour. Ethnographers note that when the tree grows dark, the flames are fanned out from the tail feathers of a wild turkey. Yagua people in every possible way avoid making fire in this way and use firebrands from the hearths of neighbors or from a community hearth that is constantly supported in the ancestral home with special care. In the mornings, women carry out firewood from there for their hearths. Hunters take fire with them during their hikes, lighting long-emitting sticks 35 to 45 cm long and 1 cm in diameter.
Fire in its "classic" incarnation appeared much later, when iron became known. Almost unchanged, it has existed for many centuries. Even the modern gas lighter still uses the flint principle. Only electric lighters of the most recent years break with a thousand-year tradition: the spark in them is not of a mechanical origin, but of an electrical one.
Friction was another method of making fire in ancient times. One of the primitive people, sitting on the ground, quickly rotated a dry stick between his palms, resting its end against a dry tree (Fig. 2.6). From the pressure, a depression was drilled in the wood, in which wood powder accumulated. Finally, the powder caught fire, and from it it was already easy to set fire to dry grass and make a fire. If by an oversight the fire went out, then
it was obtained again in the same way - by rubbing pieces of dry wood against each other.
When producing fire by rubbing wood on wood, three methods can be used: sawing, plowing ("fire plow") and drilling. Making fire by sawing and plowing was known from ethnographic data from Australia, Oceania and Indonesia. The production of fire by these methods is known among many backward peoples, including the negritos of Fr. Luson, using two halves of split bamboo, with the Australians using two sticks or a shield and a spear thrower. The method of sawing can be attributed to the production of fire from the Kukukuka tribe and from the Mbowambos (New Guinea), who used a flexible torch removed from the top layer of bamboo.
When walking through the forest at night, the people of the kukukuku tribe took with them a bamboo torch up to 3 m long. The upper sections of the bamboo were filled with araucaria resin. The torch burned for several hours.
As for the method of "fire plow" used by the Oceanians, here, probably, getting fire is associated with a special type of wood. Botanists point to a tree-like plant from the madder family (Cuettarda uruguensis), capable of producing a spark in 2-3 minutes.
By rotating the rod between the palms, the Australians, Indians of South America and other peoples produced fire, which is evidenced by the observations of ethnographers. And judging by these testimonies, the production of fire by rotating a rod between the palms was carried out by one, two or even three men. The palms became very hot during the rapid rotation of the rod, the hands got tired. Therefore, the first person who begins to rotate the rod passed it to the second, and if there was a third, he took the rod from the second and passed it to the first. Such a transfer of the rod from one person to another is also explained by the fact that during the rotation of the rod, the hands quickly slid down from the upper end due to the need to forcefully press the rod to the wood. It was impossible to move the arms upward from the lower end without stopping the rotation. Continuity of rotation of the rod, necessary for heating the working end, was achieved by collective efforts.
Experienced craftsmen worked alone in dry weather. The whole process of making a fire took no more than one minute, although during this time a person, if he worked alone, rotated the rod with extreme tension. The lower stick or plank was pressed to the ground by the foot. Among the Shingu Indians, the flammable substance was often the fiber of the bark of a palm tree, dry grass or leaves, and spongy tissue of plants.
Getting fire by drilling was difficult for an inexperienced person. Therefore, the Indians most often carried with them long-burning embers. When fishing, they took rotten logs into boats that could smolder for one or two days. Wood flour was considered a good smoldering substance. To carry the fire with wood flour, a piece of reed with holes was used, which was waved from time to time. In places where hunting camps were usually located, dry wood and flammable substances were collected and stored in nooks in advance.
The method of obtaining fire by drilling with a beam is considered more perfect (Figure 2.7, a, b). From the outside, the combustion process when drilling with a bow is as follows. Puffs of smoke appear first. You can then observe how chocolate-colored wood powder begins to accumulate around the fast rotating drill. Individual particles of this powder, carried away by the rapid movement, are thrown away further. You can clearly see them falling, smoking, although no sparks are visible.
The combustion center does not arise under the drill, where a high temperature develops, since there is no air, and not around the drill, but near the side slot, where hot powder accumulates in a bunch, where air flows freely and supports combustion (Fig. 2.7, c3e). The pile of powder continues to smoke even when drilling is stopped. This is a sure sign of burning. A hearth of red-hot flaming coals is preserved under a black layer of powder. The burning center lasts for 10-15 minutes. From it you can safely ignite any flammable substance - thin birch bark, dry moss, tow, wood chips, etc.
Thus, considering the use and production of fire, scientists believe that throughout the entire Ancient and Middle Paleolithic, fire was obtained from natural sources and was constantly maintained in the hearths. The transfer of fire from one group of hunter-gatherers to another at critical moments was the most important means of maintaining the inextinguishability of fire within the boundaries of the inhabited area, the nature of which was not rich in natural sources. The exchange of fire played a huge role in the social contacts of this the earliest period... Artificial production of fire probably arose in the Late Paleolithic in three technical versions: rubbing wood on wood, striking sparks by striking stone on stone, and sawing wood on wood.
The ability to make fire for the first time gave man dominion over a certain force of nature. Fire served, along with mechanical tools of labor, a powerful means of developing intelligence, the emergence of prudent actions calculated for the near future. Fire laid the foundation for the human economy, placing a person in conditions of constant activity, activity and tension. It could not be put aside and forgotten at least for a while, as one could do with any object, including stone tools. The fire had to be maintained so that it would not go out. He had to be watched so that he did not ignite other objects. With fire, a person had to always keep himself on the alert: do not touch with hands, protect from wind and rain, regulate the flame, store dry fuel and do much more. The result was to create a division of labor between women and men. The woman, connected with the dwelling by the functions of childbearing, raising and raising children, turned out to be the main keeper of the fire, the founder of the household.
Fire became the basis of the dwelling, as well as a source of heat and light, a means for cooking, and protection from predators. It served as a means of processing wooden tools by burning them to give hardness and facilitate work, as a hunting tool. Fire gave man the opportunity to inhabit different latitudes of the globe. No wonder all peoples at some stage of their development went through a period of fire worship, in almost every religion one of the most powerful gods was the god of fire.
As we can see, the significance of fire was great not only for the cultural progress of mankind; he played an important role in the very process of human development. At first it was used for warming and lighting, and only then was it used for cooking. As scientists have proven, this gradually changed both the appearance of a person and energy. human body, making it more powerful than any other mammal. It is estimated that a higher mammal spends about 125 thousand kilocalories per kilogram of weight in its life, and a modern man - six times more, about 750 thousand kilocalories per kilogram of weight.
All further gains in culture, technology and management are due to the comprehensive use of fire. Ceramic production, metallurgy, glass making, steam engines, the chemical industry, mechanical transport, and finally nuclear power is the result of the use of high and ultra-high temperatures, that is, the result of the use of fire on a higher, qualitatively excellent technical basis.
Incendiary matches first appeared only in the early 30s of the 19th century. Originally, they were long wooden sticks with a head at the end, made from a mixture of powdered sugar and berthollet's salt. The end of such a match was dipped into a jar of sulfuric acid, which is why the match was lit. In 1835, an Austrian student Irini invented a match that ignites from friction. The head of the match was first covered with gray, after which it was lowered into a special mass containing highly flammable phosphorus. To light such a match, it is enough to strike it against any wall or other rough object. Irini sold his invention for a pittance (100 guilders) to a wealthy manufacturer Römer, who very quickly made a huge fortune on the manufacture of matches. 13 years after Irini's invention, the German scientist Better began to make a mass for match heads from a mixture of Berthollet's salt and manganese peroxide. Such matches ignite from friction against a piece of paper coated with red phosphorus mixed with glue. For the first time, Better's invention was applied in Sweden, and similar matches were called "Swedish".
