They weren’t even the first to do so, he added. That accomplishment goes to Thal’s earlier ancestor Homo erectus (Rectus, in Bruno’s parlance), nominally recognized for the rather low achievement of standing—it is in the name, Bruno said, Person Upright, but in fact, the true accomplishment of Homo erectus was that he was the first man to play with fire. And we must infer, Bruno told them, that the first man to play with fire was also the first man to smoke.
