How Did Ancient Humans Make Fire?

You light a stove or a cigarette with one thumb and never think about it. For almost all of human history, making fire from nothing was one of the hardest skills a person could have — and for a long time the harder problem wasn't making it at all. It was never letting it go out.

This video walks through the whole story:
Why keeping a fire alive mattered more than starting one, and the people whose job it was
The oldest evidence for controlled fire: Wonderwerk Cave, Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, and the fight over the dates
Richard Wrangham's "cooking made us human" hypothesis vs. the 400,000-year-ago counter-argument
The Neanderthal fire puzzle and the manganese-dioxide fire-starting trick
Friction fire: the hand drill, the bow drill, the fire plough and fire saw — and why it's a coal, not a spark
Percussion fire: flint and pyrite, Ötzi's 5,000-year-old fire kit, flint and steel
The fire piston (compression ignition, discovered in the jungle) and the burning mirror
Tinder: the half of the skill nobody talks about
Fire as a tool: fire-hardened spears, clearing land, Australian fire-stick farming, and every later heat technology
Why nearly every culture on Earth has a myth about fire being stolen from the gods
The match (1826), "phossy jaw," the 1888 matchgirls' strike, the safety match, and the lighter (1903)

CHAPTERS
0:00  The casual version of the hardest skill
0:22  Keeping the fire alive was the real job
1:14  When did humans first control fire?
1:52  Did cooking make us human?
2:14  Or was it only 400,000 years ago?
2:48  The Neanderthal puzzle
3:12  A fire-starting trick made of manganese
3:39  Method one: friction and the hand drill
4:20  The bow drill, the plough, the saw
4:48  It's a coal, not a spark
5:13  Method two: striking sparks
5:30  Ötzi's 5,000-year-old fire kit
6:01  The fire piston and the burning mirror
6:40  Tinder: the other half of the skill
7:24  Fire becomes a tool that reshapes the world
8:17  The fire at the center of the camp
8:59  Why almost every culture says fire was stolen
9:48  The match, and how recent it is
10:19  The safety match and the lighter
10:48  What you're really doing with your thumb