In USSR there was a very popular children book on this subject, "The adventures of a prehistoric boy" (Aventures d’un petit garçon préhistorique en France). Central plot element was mismanagement of the perpetual fire by the titular boy, which led to his banishment from his tribe, and his quest to survive and bring fire back to his people.<p>As a child, I surely enjoyed this story and would recommend it to anyone.
I think one of the most profound intellectual insights I've had is that the myth of Prometheus was in a sense true, but described events so old--that we wouldn't event consider the "people" in the myth (the ones who received the gift of fire) as human.<p>It made me realize just how much of everything I have and know is inherited, and why traditional cultures revere their elders so. Especially when the world changes as slow as it used to, your elder taught you everything that mattered, and everything that mattered was handed down across millennia.
As mentioned in another comment, Quest for Fire is a great film that tries to explain exactly this.<p>It follows the path of a group of Neanderthals in Paleolithic Europe (80,000 years ago), that try to tame fire, and their contact with homo-sapiens and other humanoid species.<p>It is outdated/inaccurate, given our today's knowledge, but We know The authors tried to do as much justice as they could, given the knowledge of the time.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Fire_(film)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Fire_(film)</a><p>It was one of those slow but very captivating movies of the era. Movies like this (both indy feel and very high quality), are just are not made anymore.