Transporting Fire Primitively

A lot of people assume that when early man learned to control fire and carried it from place to place that he actually used bracket fungi, now I have no doubt at all that that's true but I also believe he used other methods too, one of these being dried elder.

 

 

I tried it out to see what sort of result we could get. So I cut a piece of dead dried elder about a foot long and lit the end in the fire.

I had to constantly wave the branch or blow on it to keep the ember alight but if you're walking you're naturally swinging your arms anyway!

2 hours later I was about half way through the branch but the ember was still going strong..

at about 3 1/2 hours I was down to the last few inches as seen here, but the ember was as good as ever.

Just goes to prove you can carry fire with many methods as long as you have the know how.