See title I guess
The word “historically” makes the answer challenging because all mankind used animal fat for cooking before more complex tools and machines allowed for the scaled processing of plant oils.
I believe (not positive) that plant oils for cooking food wasn’t pervasive until the past few centuries.
**I am no expert and might be totally wrong.
All of them. Seed oils were invented in the 19th century and weren’t really used till the early 20th century.
Edit: Agriculture exist for 12000 years (4% of human existence), and making oil is a very inefficient process quantity wise. If some cultures did have a few seed oils it still doesn’t compare to modern day oil use nor does it compare to animal fat use.
I’m going to hazard a guess here. My mind tells me that back when the coming first started they didn’t have pots and pans. Not trying to be funny… Just thinking it through as I type. Perhaps they just cooked the food, meat and fat together and the fat just rendered in? And perhaps when humans first started using pots and pans it was the same thing… Just throw the whole meat portion in with the fat. So to get to an answer I don’t think they actively thought about using fat too cook with, but cooked with it by default and it seems to me that in the process they would’ve discovered that the fat had good cooking utility. ????