They are not likely to start barbecuing in the rainforest, but chimpanzees can understand the concept of cooking and are willing to postpone eating raw food, even carrying food some distance to cook it rather than eat immediately, scientists reported.

The findings, based on nine experiments conducted at the Tchimpounga Sanctuary in Republic of Congo and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggest that chimps have all the brainpower needed to cook, including planning, causal understanding, and ability to postpone gratification.

They do lack the ability to produce fire. But if they were given a source of heat, chimps might be quite able to manipulate it to cook, said developmental psychologist Felix Warneken of Harvard University, who conducted the study with Alexandra Rosati.

Findings support idea that cooking accelerated human evolution

While the finding may seem esoteric, it lends support to the idea that cooking accelerated human evolution. Cooked food is easier to digest, spurring the growth of large brains in our australopithecine ancestors, Harvard’s Richard Wrangham proposed about a decade ago.

If chimps have the cognitive skills to cook, australopithecines likely did, too, said Wrangham, who was not involved in the study. It suggests that with a little extra brainpower, australopithecines could indeed have found a way to use fire to cook food.

Archaeological evidence suggests humans began using fire one million years ago.

Some of the experiments confirmed studies by other scientists, such as that chimps prefer seared sweet potatoes to raw. But those tests did not test whether chimps have the mental chops to cook. Other studies did.