Thus far, most researchers have focused on the cognition of fire use, but few have explored the cognition of firemaking. With this contribution we analyse aspects of the two main hunter-gatherer firemaking techniques—the strike-a-light and the manual fire-drill—in terms of causal, social and prospective reasoning. Based on geographic distribution, archaeological and ethnographic information, as well as our cognitive interpretation of strike-a-light firemaking, we suggest that this technique may well have been invented by Neanderthal populations in Eurasia. Fire-drills, on the other hand, represent a rudimentary form of a symbiotic technology, which requires more elaborate prospective and causal reasoning skills. This firemaking technology may have been invented by different Homo sapiens groups roaming the African savanna before populating the rest of the globe, where fire-drills remain the most-used hunter-gatherer firemaking technique.

迄今为止，大多数研究者都关注对用火的认知，但很少有人探索生火的认知。通过这篇文章，我们从因果、社会和前瞻性推理的角度分析了两种主要的狩猎采集生火技术——点灯和手动生火练习。根据地理分布、考古和人种学信息，以及我们对点灯生火的认知解释，我们认为这种技术很可能是由欧亚大陆的尼安德特人发明的。另一方面，消防演习代表了共生技术的基本形式，需要更复杂的前瞻性和因果推理技能。这种生火技术可能是由不同的智人发明的在遍布全球其他地区之前，这些群体在非洲大草原上漫游，在这些地区，消防演习仍然是狩猎采集者最常用的生火技术。