The campfire as a tool for prehistoric production – mastering flames, one of the oldest crafts on earth.
How the Modern Human Crafted Fire
When firing pottery in an electric kiln makes the potter’s life so easy, why continue to fire with wood?
I do like flames, not in a destructive way; for the peace of mind, just watching flames for its therapeutic effect, it’s meditative here-and-now experience. Just be here with no rush, staring into flames. My thoughts are always dancing around the thousands of things I have to do in my everyday life. In front of the campfire, it’s just me, time, and the flames.
You know, humans and flames are deeply connected, we just forgot all about it:
Modern human crafted fire:
When the camp is done for the night, while darkness sneaks into every corner of the forest, the soft flames give light, heat, and protection; against the dark and whatever wild animals are out there. Heat means cooked food, hot chocolate, and a cozy evening. But there is also something on a much deeper level; if you sit by the fire, observing the flames closely at night in a quiet forest, you can sometimes get a glimpse of…….. your ancestors.
Spiritually, at least! As a personal mind game, yes you can!
According to Wikipedia, the Homo race got an intimate relation to flames for maybe as much as 2 million years:
Claims for the earliest definitive evidence of control of fire by a member of Homo range from 1.7 to 2.0 million years ago
That’s insane!
2 million years ago, we were maybe sitting around the campfire at night watching the flames, just like you and me today. Homo Sapiens as we know us weren’t even born. We talk about the grandparents of modern man. Meaning Homo Sapiens was bred and born in the ash of our ancestor’s campfire. Literally, we developed here, this is home, evolutionary speaking.
Some scientists even claim we owe our high intelligence to cooking food on the campfire. 25% of your total energy intake goes to support your massive brain, energyvise a big brain comes at a high price. To cook and heat food was a shortcut to large amounts of nutrients, and the path to our oversized thinking capacity.
Hey, what if we all had an IQ under 60 if it wasn’t for fire?
If you split the modern human’s existence into 100 equal parts, we have lived 99 of them in the Stone Age. That’s an idea to play with, huh? ChatGPT, electricity, cars, summer vacation, paper money, or the old steam engine. It’s all just a flash, a costume party.
See the connection here? Modern life is so not you, and the campfire is a mental WiFi, just waiting for you to hook up again. Humans are entertained by flames today, as other humanoids probably were 2’000’000 years ago: The atmosphere around the crackling campfire, surrounded by the dark night all around, and the sparse light from the cosmos above.
I won’t say the campfire is the missing piece in every person’s soul, or the solution to every problem. But personally, I feel deeply bound to it; this is home to me, and a great place to reflect over life in the big picture.
Humans greatest invention
Fire is one of the human’s greatest inventions, the greatest! Human-crafted fire, we are the only animals taming fire. Inventing the wheel? Blah. The scarab-beetle rolling his ball of dung invented it too. Only humans had the curiosity and guts to tame the power of destruction. In historic times somewhere on earth; a bolt of lightning started a fire, and someone in a small group of frightened people nearby must have said; “I want it to be mine!”.
I think that pretty much defines us as a species.
Wild flames – Free flames – Tamed flames
So what does it all have to do with pottery?
The wood-fired kiln IS the campfire, it’s an upgrade, a campfire 2.0 so to speak. It’s the roots of Homo Sapience and one of the oldest crafts on earth. The flame-kiln literary evolved out of our campfires, and represents 30’000 years of ceramic improvements!
Fire’s dual nature.
Fire is man’s strongest symbol of destruction; every animal fears fire, not without reason. Both the campfire and the wood-fired kiln are all about taming the beast, controlling the inferno. Not that it wants to be controlled though. Don’t play with fire! Every kid has heard that one: Losing control has serious consequences.
Horses did not invite humans to ride them, every wild horse fought for its freedom and lost, Homo Sapiens slaved them, we forced them. Like you have to force the flames to do as you please, it demands mastery to transform a burning stick into the volcano in our pottery kiln, and no one can truly master what they don’t fully understand. Fire is unpredictable in its nature. Deep inside your cozy campfire is a wild horse dreaming about freedom. That is why potters have always seen the kiln as both a friend and an enemy. Not fully understood, not fully controlled, dangerous on the loose. I read ones that the old Asian Snake-kiln has a word for being so difficult to master, that every firing is a fight. To set up a hard battle is your best guarantee for success.
I guess for potters, the fascination for flames is just half the fascination; the other half is the challenge of controlling them. The craft of reading flames, understanding the process deep inside the kiln, and adjusting the fire to get the results I want. I like the fact that it demands long experience and know-how to handle it well, and a lifetime to truly master.
Wood-fired pottery is both bushcraft and sustainable living.
Humans have too high an environmental impact on the planet. Potters contribute to this as everyone else. I do like the ecological benefit of short-traveled materials. Fire it with local wood is how it’s “meant to be”, trees are made for burning.
If society breaks down today, I need some dead trees, local clay, and a matchstick to make pottery. I don’t really need a matchstick either; I can make fire with some sticks, friction heat, and a shoelace, but that’s another story.
Or maybe it’s the same story?
Wood-fired pottery is basic survival skills, taught from one generation to the next since pre-historical times. Fire was our greatest tool, our oldest tool. We need to keep the tradition alive by teaching it to our kids.
“Human Crafted Fire” – 2024
How to fire a high-fire pottery kiln:
https://www.woodfireceramic.com/burn-ceramic-consistently-in-a-wood-kiln/
How to build a homemade pottery kiln:
https://www.woodfireceramic.com/how-to-build-a-wood-fired-pottery-kiln/
The simplest form for kiln:
https://www.woodfireceramic.com/the-sawdust-kiln/
“How the Modern Human Crafted Fire” October 2024