Amazing stuff! Another surprising discovery about the Neanderthals!
I had previously blogged here already about this discovery, but it was only about a video!
I bet this is not the earliest ever, but other places somewhere around the world will be discovered in the future.
"... Pinpointing exactly when this kind of fire use evolved is tricky, since the traces of natural burns and human-made ones look alike. Now, a new study reports on a concentrated patch of heated sediment and burned stone tools from the East Farm Barnham archeological site.
The researchers found two fragments of pyrite, a mineral that can produce sparks when struck against flint, indicating that the early Neanderthals used them as “a fire-making kit.” These ancient deposits mark the earliest known evidence of fire-making, roughly 400,000 years ago. ..."
"A stunning discovery at an archaeological dig in the UK is rewriting the timeline of when humans first made fire.
Researchers have discovered the earliest known instance of human-created fire, which took place in the east of England 400,000 years ago.
The new discovery, in the village of Barnham, pushes the origin of human fire-making back by more than 350,000 years, far earlier than previously thought. ..."
"The discovery shows humans were making fire around 350,000 years earlier than previously known.
Research ... provides evidence of the earliest known instance of fire-making by humans – around 400,000 years ago. Previous recorded instances of fire-making date to only 50,000 years ago. ..."
From the abstract:
"Fire-making is a uniquely human innovation that stands apart from other complex behaviours such as tool production, symbolic culture and social communication.
Controlled fire use provided adaptive opportunities that had profound effects on human evolution. Benefits included warmth, protection from predators, cooking and creation of illuminated spaces that became focal points for social interaction. Fire use developed over a million years, progressing from harvesting natural fire to maintaining and ultimately making fire.
Controlled fire use provided adaptive opportunities that had profound effects on human evolution. Benefits included warmth, protection from predators, cooking and creation of illuminated spaces that became focal points for social interaction. Fire use developed over a million years, progressing from harvesting natural fire to maintaining and ultimately making fire.
However, determining when and how fire use evolved is challenging because natural and anthropogenic burning are hard to distinguish. Although geochemical methods have improved interpretations of heated deposits, unequivocal evidence of deliberate fire-making has remained elusive.
Here we present evidence of fire-making on a 400,000-year-old buried land surface at Barnham (UK), where heated sediments and fire-cracked flint handaxes were found alongside two fragments of iron pyrite—a mineral used in later periods to strike sparks with flint.
Geological studies show that pyrite is locally rare, suggesting it was brought deliberately to the site for fire-making.
The emergence of this technological capability provided important social and adaptive benefits, including the ability to cook food on demand—particularly meat—thereby enhancing digestibility and energy availability, which may have been crucial for hominin brain evolution."
"... Sites in Africa suggest humans used natural fire over a million years ago, but the discovery at the Palaeolithic site in Barnham evidences the creation and control of fire, which carries huge implications for human development and evolution. Until now, the oldest known evidence of fire-making was from 50,000 years ago, found in northern France. ..."
The moment the earliest known human-made fire was uncovered "BBC News visits the prehistoric site in Suffolk"
Groundbreaking discovery shows earliest evidence of fire-making (official news release) "Researchers led by the British Museum have unearthed the earliest known evidence of fire-making, dating back over 400,000 years, in a field in Suffolk."
Earliest evidence of making fire (no public access)
The site at Barnham, where the discoveries were made
