Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía por la Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU)
Investigador
en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte. / PhD in
Philosophy – University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU)
Researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origins of art.
A review of Amos Frumkin's study (2026) in Geomorphology: Late Quaternary fire-induced erosion, impacts and innovations in the southern Levant
Introduction: catastrophe as teacher
Can a catastrophe teach a species to create? Can the fire that destroys also reveal? This is the question running through the study by Amos Frumkin, geomorphologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, published in 2026 in the journal Geomorphology . The work proposes a bold hypothesis: that the great fires that devastated the southern Levant some 9,500 years ago may have inspired the invention of pottery in the Neolithic.
Frumkin's proposal, called the "natural kiln hypothesis" , holds that the Neolithic communities inhabiting the Jordan Valley would have observed how natural fires hardened exposed clay. That casual observation —seeing earth transformed by fire into something hard and permanent— would have provided the basic idea for reproducing the process intentionally . Pottery, one of the most important technologies in human history, may have been born from imitating what nature had already shown.
Observation alone, however, explains nothing. A biological system does not adopt an innovation simply because it has seen it. It adopts it when it perceives a tangible benefit for its own survival, when it has a nervous system capable of processing that advantage, and when there is an imperative need driving its material application. Pottery did not impose itself because someone contemplated hardened clay, but because at some point that hardened clay became the answer to a problem that urgently needed solving. What was that problem? What did those first potters see in the earth transformed by fire? The question remains open, and it is, perhaps, the most interesting one in the entire study.
The setting: fires, erosion, and the creation of a new landscape
To understand Frumkin's hypothesis, it is necessary to reconstruct the environmental setting in which this discovery would have occurred. The study compares two periods separated by more than a hundred thousand years: the last interglacial, known as MIS 5e (approximately 129,000 to 116,000 years before the present), and the early Holocene (between 11,000 and 7,000 years ago) .
In both intervals, the geological records show the same sequence: episodes of extensive fires followed by pronounced erosion. Microscopic charcoal particles preserved in sediments from ancient lakes —such as Lake Hula and the Dead Sea— show peaks of igneous activity, while chemical signatures preserved in cave formations reveal substantial losses of vegetation and soil . During the early Holocene, the most intense episode would have occurred between 9,500 and 8,200 years before the present .
The disappearance of vegetation cover left soils unprotected against rain and runoff. The red earth, rich in clay and known as terra rossa, was washed down from the slopes and deposited in large quantities in the depressions of the Jordan Valley and the Dead Sea . Far from turning these areas into uninhabitable spaces, the process generated new environments of high fertility where farming communities found land suitable for cultivation. The large Neolithic settlements —such as Sha'ar Hagolan, Jericho, Netiv Hagdud, and Gilgal— became increasingly concentrated on these redeposited soils, which favoured residential stability and the development of sedentary societies .
As Frumkin notes, "a forest fire is usually perceived only as a catastrophe, but the alteration of the environment can also expose populations to new materials and possibilities" . The catastrophe, paradoxically, created the conditions for an innovation.
The natural kiln hypothesis: from accident to intention
Frumkin's hypothesis rests on a fundamental technical fact: clay undergoes irreversible transformations when heated between 500 and 700 °C . At these temperatures, the material loses its plasticity and acquires permanent hardness. A sufficiently intense forest fire, capable of reaching these temperatures in the soil, could produce small quantities of naturally fired clay .
The proposal suggests that the inhabitants of the Jordan Valley may have found fragments of clay transformed by the heat of natural fires which, after cooling, displayed an unknown hardness and durability . That casual observation would have provided the basic idea for the intentional firing of clay. But, as we have noted, observation is not enough. For the discovery to be completed, other factors had to converge: a nervous system capable of processing the advantage of that material, and an imperative need for its practical application.
The hypothesis rests on earlier petrographic research demonstrating that the pottery of the Yarmukian period, found in the Jordan Valley, was made with redeposited terra rossa clay, the same material accumulated near the settlements as a consequence of erosion from nearby hills . That is, the Neolithic potters used precisely the type of clay that the fires had brought to their doorsteps.
This detail is significant because it connects the raw material of pottery with the environmental event that, according to the hypothesis, would have inspired its firing. The sequence would be as follows: fires wash clay down into the valleys; communities observe how that clay hardens under the heat of new fires; someone understands that the process can be deliberately reproduced and that the result has a value that until then had not been exploited. Only then is pottery truly born .
Nature's control experiment: MIS 5e
One of the most fascinating aspects of Frumkin's study is the use of a natural experiment to test his hypothesis. During the last interglacial (MIS 5e), more than 100,000 years ago, the southern Levant experienced environmental conditions similar to those of the early Holocene: large fires, loss of vegetation, severe erosion, and clay accumulation in the valleys .
Yet pottery was not invented. This fact is crucial to Frumkin's hypothesis. If the environmental factor had been sufficient, pottery should also have appeared in MIS 5e. But it did not. Why?
The answer, according to Frumkin, lies in the social and cognitive preconditions. The Middle Palaeolithic communities inhabiting the region 100,000 years ago had no agriculture, did not live in permanent settlements, and did not possess the technological organisation or accumulated experience of later Neolithic societies . The landscape could offer the clue, but someone had to be prepared to understand it.
As the study notes, "MIS 5e effectively functions as a natural control experiment, with similar conditions but a different cognitive and social context, which is why pottery was not invented" . This argument reinforces the idea that technological innovation is not merely an automatic response to the environment, but requires a mind prepared to recognise and exploit the opportunities the environment presents. And it requires, moreover, a need that makes that opportunity urgent.
What the first potters saw: the question that remains open
If we accept that observation is not enough, that it takes a tangible benefit, a nervous system capable of processing it, and an imperative need, then we must ask ourselves: what concrete need could have driven the invention of pottery? What did those prehistoric entrepreneurs of the Levant see in the clay hardened by fire?
We can speculate with several possibilities. Perhaps they saw the opportunity to store water and food in airtight containers, resistant to rodents and humidity, in a context of growing sedentism where harvests had to be preserved for months. Perhaps they saw the possibility of cooking foods that had previously been difficult to digest, thereby transforming the diet and improving nutrition. Perhaps they saw a way to transport liquids easily, expanding the radius of action of communities. Or perhaps they saw all of this at once, or something entirely different that we, from our distance of nine thousand years, cannot even imagine.
What we can affirm is that the need was not the same for everyone. The Middle Palaeolithic communities saw the same hardened clay, but did nothing with it, because their way of life did not require ceramic containers. Neolithic communities, by contrast, needed to store agricultural surpluses, transport water to settlements, cook foods that had previously been eaten raw. Pottery was not born from observation, but from the encounter between observation and a need that observation alone could not satisfy.
The question, therefore, is not only what they saw, but what they needed to see for what they were seeing to acquire meaning. And that question leads us to a deeper issue about the nature of human innovation: to what extent does the environment determine what we invent, and to what extent do we ourselves, with our needs and our capacities, decide what the environment offers us?
A reading from the S/Y/C model
Frumkin's study offers a concrete case in which the functioning of the Law of Biological Coherence S/Y/C that forms the core of our research can be observed (Mallo, 2023, 2025, 2026a, 2026b). The three dimensions of our thesis unfold here with uncommon clarity.
The S (Survival) dimension manifests in the relationship between environmental catastrophe and human adaptation. Fires destroyed the landscape, but also created new conditions of fertility that attracted Neolithic communities. Pottery, once adopted, improved the capacity to store food and liquids, to cook and ferment products, contributing directly to survival and population growth . The invention was not a luxury, but an adaptive response to a transformed environment. But, we insist, it was not enough for the environment to offer the opportunity: someone had to perceive in it an advantage for survival.
The Y (Symbolon) dimension manifests in the act of recognition underlying the invention. Neolithic potters did not merely see hardened clay: they recognised in it a possibility. They established a connection between what they observed (clay transformed by fire) and what they could do (reproduce the process). This act of recognition is essentially symbolic: it implies the capacity to see beyond the immediate, to establish an analogy between the observed past and the possible future. Symbolon, in its etymological sense of "act of recognition through shared codes", manifests here as the capacity to read the environment and translate that reading into technical action.
The C (Wholeness) dimension manifests in the culmination of the process. Pottery is not only a useful object; it is a finished object, which has passed through a complete sequence of transformations to reach its final form. The drive toward wholeness —the need to close a cycle, to give coherence to matter— is the same that guides the artist when finishing a work. The invention of pottery represents, in this sense, a milestone in the history of function C: the human capacity to transform materials into permanent objects, endowed with form and meaning. And wholeness, in this case, is fulfilled when the object not only exists, but serves something the biological system needs.
Surgical Philosophy invites us to make a precise analytical cut in Frumkin's hypothesis. It is not about accepting it as established truth —the author himself insists that it is a hypothesis requiring empirical validation — nor rejecting it as speculative. It is about recognising that it offers a plausible model of how observation of the environment, the need for survival, and symbolic capacity combine to produce technological innovation. The environmental catastrophe was not the cause of the invention, but its catalyst: it created the material conditions (clay in the valleys) and the cognitive opportunity (visible hardened clay) for a prepared mind to make the leap. But the leap only occurred when a need appeared that made that opportunity valuable.
Final considerations: the lesson of fire
Amos Frumkin's study reminds us of something fundamental about human creativity: we do not invent in a vacuum. The invention of pottery was not an act of isolated genius, but the result of a complex interaction between the environment, need, and the capacity to recognise possibilities. The fires of the Levant did not "teach" anyone to make pottery, but they did create the conditions for someone, at some point, to see in hardened clay a promise of permanence.
But that promise was only fulfilled when it coincided with a need. Observation, by itself, is sterile. The biological system does not adopt an innovation because it sees it, but because it suits it. And it suits it when that innovation solves a problem that survival poses. Pottery was not born from fire, but from the encounter between fire, clay, and a community that needed something it did not yet have.
This perspective also illuminates our research on the origin of art. Art, like pottery, was not born from sudden inspiration, but from the confluence of biological, cognitive, and environmental factors. The human nervous system, with its single S/Y/C function, is designed to recognise patterns, attribute meaning, and seek wholeness. But that function is only activated and unfolds when the environment presents an opportunity and when a need makes it relevant. A stone shaped like a face, clay hardened by fire, a cave wall suggesting the shape of an animal: all of them are opportunities waiting for a need to turn them into something more.
The lesson of fire is, perhaps, the lesson of all human creation: catastrophe can be creative, and innovation emerges when the prepared mind finds, in the opportunity the world offers, the answer to a need it did not yet know it had. From Neolithic pottery to artificial intelligence algorithms, the history of our species is the history of that encounter between environment, need, and imagination.
References
Frumkin, A. (2026). Late Quaternary fire-induced erosion, impacts and innovations in the southern Levant. Geomorphology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2026.109916
Mallo, B. (2023). La construcción neuro-simbólica. Una aproximación al funcionamiento del cerebro desde una perspectiva multidisciplinar [Doctoral thesis, University of the Basque Country - Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea]. ADDI Repository. http://hdl.handle.net/10810/62701
Mallo, B. (2025). Arte y biología: Una aproximación neurofilosófica al origen de la experiencia estética. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y5WZMK
Mallo, B. (2025). Art and biology: A neurophilosophical approach to the origin of aesthetic experience. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0E8Y6C2XN
Mallo, B. (2026a). De la filosofía quirúrgica a la ley de coherencia biológica S/Y/C: Hacia una investigación sobre el origen del arte en la especie Homo. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57196
Mallo, B. (2026a). De la filosofía quirúrgica a la ley de coherencia biológica S/Y/C: Hacia una investigación sobre el origen del arte en la especie Homo [Kindle edition]. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GYGTJD5C
Mallo, B. (2026b). From surgical philosophy to the law of biological coherence S/Y/C: Toward a study of the origin of art in the Homo lineage. https://isbn.bibna.gub.uy/catalogo.php?mode=detalle&nt=57197
Weiner, S. (2010). Reconstructing pyrotechnological processes. In Microarchaeology: Beyond the visible archaeological record (pp. 165–206). Cambridge University Press.
Autor / Author
Bernabé Mallo
Doctor en Filosofía – Universidad del País Vasco / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Investigador independiente en neurofilosofía, evolución humana y origen del arte.
Bernabé Mallo
PhD in Philosophy – University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea (UPV/EHU)
Independent researcher in neurophilosophy, human evolution, and the origin of art.
Enlaces / Links
Página de autor Amazon / Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/bernabemallo
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9002-9728
Plataforma EHUenRed / Link EHUenRed: https://www.ehu.eus/es/web/masterrak-eta-graduondokoak/red-latinoamericana-de-posgrados
Canal YouTube / Channel YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@neuroideas815
Canal YouTube / Channel YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBsf6OZ482NjST6QA-hvYtQ
Publicaciones y proyectos en desarrollo / Publications and projects:
https://www.amazon.com/author/bernabemallo
https://ehuenred.theglocal.network/ideas/el-origen-del-arte-en-el-cerebro-de-makapansgat-al-moma-del-primate-al-sapiens