Forget your South African braai, your Australian barbie or your July 4th cook out. The home of the real, original BBQ is Israel.
An ancient limestone cave in the rolling countryside east of Tel Aviv has provided a captivating glimpse into humanity’s remote past—the oldest known hearth, around which families periodically cooked their meals more than 300,000 years ago.
It’s “the first-ever fireplace,” said Tel Aviv University archaeologist Ran Barkai in an email, and the earliest-known evidence of domestication of fire. Bringing home and roasting meat are “two very human phenomena that for us seem natural, but really are not. [The hearth] belongs to a crucial time in human biological and cultural evolution.”
Oh yeah baby, and I know how I’m going to be celebrating this!
h/t Touring Israel on Facebook
