Fires -needed watching, not only to keep them from going out,
but from spreading, or theft, so a fire-keeper was delegated to the work,
thus starting a social organization.

The early fires also formed a nucleus for human grouping,
and became tribal or communal fires,
from which the individual family fires derived.

Symbolic and superstitious uses of fire have been common to all faces,
and at an early period the altar fires were kept sacred - the symbol of religion -
but as time went on the significance gradually lessened,
and finally the hearth became the center- of the home,
with its hospitality and good cheer.'
So through the centuries the lure of fire has remained one of the strongest
instincts of the human race.


When possible the communal fire was placed in front of a rock shelter or cave;
in a place safe and convenient for the use of everyone,
and the necessity for a screen to protect the early bonfires from the wind
may have been the reason for the round form of house thought to be the earliest.'
Later individual fires were built in the center of the family shelters,
where the hearth became known as the chimney.
The term, chimney, then was used to include the hole or flue which carried off the smoke
of the fire burning- in a pit in the center of the floor.