Editing Incendiary Weapons (section)

===Burning brands===
Obviously, the use of fire predates history itself. [[Stone Age|It is possible early apes that were not yet humans were throwing burning sticks at prey and each other]]. That may sound outlandish but we point at fire hawks, a group of hawks that carry burning sticks from one wildfire, to start another to flush out prey. There are a few theories that cooking food may have been the evolutionary jump-start to our intelligence so we were cooking and burning for a long, long time. The earliest sign we know for sure as being from a human-controlled fire goes back almost 300 to 400 thousand years ago.

The first flaming weapons, therefore, were also simple, just burning sticks. It may sound unimpressive but to any kind of animal predator, a torch is an easy and effective way to push them back. Additionally, for much of human history, [[Not as planned|cities were made of wood]] and firefighting at best consisted of bucket chains. A relatively small band of arsonists could destroy even a reasonably sized settlement by indiscriminately throwing burning torches and moving quickly. It is such a burnt in our mental image that the idea of a "medieval raider" often has that burning torch in hand, on horseback. It is such a common tactic that there are literally too many examples in history to mention. From the Greeks to Scots to the English against the Scots and French, to the Mongols, literally burning an enemy land to deny the resources, shelter, and food it might offer, both offensively and even defensively in a "scorched earth campaign", is the most ancient military tactic: it literally predates the creation of steel!