The discovery of fire is a decisive milestone in human evolution, a milestone that fundamentally changed the course of our development. If humans had discovered fire three hundred years earlier, the impact on the development of mankind would have been profound and complex.
The earlier discovery of fire would probably have accelerated technological innovation. Fire provided warmth, shelter and the ability to cook food, which increased the nutritional value of meals and allowed for a healthier, more robust population. With the early advent of fire, people would have had more time to experiment and refine the use of this element, possibly leading to an earlier development of metallurgy. The ability to work with metals could have led to advances in tools and weapons much earlier, resulting in more sophisticated societies and possibly even hastening the onset of the Bronze Age.
Fire also played a crucial role in social cohesion and community building. Gathering around a fire for warmth and protection would have encouraged the development of language and storytelling as a means of communication and cultural transmission. If fire had been used earlier, these social structures might have been consolidated earlier, leading to the formation of more complex social hierarchies and the earlier formation of tribes or settlements.
With the mastery of fire, early humans were no longer restricted to warmer climates and were able to venture into colder regions. An early discovery may have resulted in earlier migrations that spread humanity across the globe more quickly. This may have led to multiple adaptations and innovations as humans interacted with new environments and challenges.
So if fire had been discovered three hundred years earlier, human development would probably have been much faster. Technological, social, cultural and environmental changes that took millennia to unfold might have occurred much sooner, altering the course of human history in ways we can only imagine. The ripple effects of such change could have reshaped not only human society, but the entire planet.