I’ve tried the whole “twist a stick on some kindling” method and I’ve never been successful. I’m fairly fit, and the most I’ve dedicated to trying such a method was an hour at a time, but I just come nowhere near making a real fire. Were they just a hell of a lot stronger and enduring? Did they have longer sticks?
Hi there -- while this question may garner some answers here, you may also want to crosspost it to r/askanthropology.
I don't have an answer, but I'd appreciate if I could ask for some specific detail around this question, when someone does answer it:
1 - I've heard that prior to the man-made creation of fire, it would commonly be obtained via a natural fire (lightning, wildfire etc) and simply fed permanently, even transported. This seems to me to be a waste of fuel that wouldn't be easy to find and continually transport to a fire, and the technology to transport a fire safely would seem to be more advanced than the simple tricks of starting a fire via friction. Did this actually occur?