Hi, you're about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from

Curiosity.com. I'm Cody Goff and I'm Ashley Hamer. Today you learn about the

earliest evidence of humans changing their ecosystems with fire, how scientists may have overcome

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and whether social media might be hurting your

memory. Let's satisfy some... What does it be... Oh, curiosity.

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You know, there are a lot of myths out there about quote-unquote cavemen, but it turns out... of Well, one such cave in South Africa, researchers have uncovered evidence of the earliest human

activity we've ever found, activity that was essential for our advancement as a species.

South Africa's Vandavark Cave in the Kalahari Desert

is one of the world's great archaeological sites.

Its oldest artifacts indicate that ancestral humans were hanging out in the cave at least 3.3 million years ago.

And this new research shows they'd made it a permanent home by about 1.8 million years ago. Now we're not talking cave-dwelling

hermits. The evidence shows that the cave was shelter, kitchen, workshop, and more for generation upon generation of ancient humans.

It was continuously occupied for thousands of years.

And get this, since the archaeological site is sheltered by the cave, both the artifacts and the earth they're

buried in have been more or less uncontaminated.

That lets archaeologists date the artifacts they find with a lot more accuracy than they can

with artifacts that have been exposed to the elements. One of the most exciting finds are

what researchers call Oldawone stone tools. These are early tools that were probably

made by hitting stones against each other to break flakes off and create a sharpish

...