Groundbreaking Discovery: Humans Mastered Fire-Making 400,000 Years Ago, Study Unveils

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Scientists have announced they have discovered evidence in the United Kingdom of humans deliberately making fire 400,000 years ago, dramatically pushing back the timeline for when our ancient relatives are known to have mastered this crucial skill.

Learning to light our own fires was one of the great turning points in human history, offering our ancestors warmth, a place to socialise and a way to cook food, which helped us evolve our unusually big brains.

There are signs that humans used fire more than a million years ago in Africa, but it is believed these flames were originally lit by natural causes, such as lightning.

Finding solid evidence that our ancestors were sparking their own fires has proven extremely difficult, possibly because the tools did not last throughout the millennia.

A breakthrough discovery by a team of researchers from the British Museum has unveiled a human-made fireplace estimated to be 400,000 years old near Barnham, a village in Suffolk, eastern England.

Previously, the oldest evidence of fire-making anywhere in the world was found in France and dated back 50,000 years.

“This is the most exciting discovery of my 40-year career,” Nick Ashton, a curator at the British Museum and senior author of a study in Nature describing the find, told a press conference.

Remarkably, the team suggests this ancient fireplace may have been used by Neanderthals, often regarded as one of the most misunderstood branches on the human evolutionary tree.

The first clue pointing to the existence of this fireplace emerged in 2021, when scientists detected sediment at the site showing evidence of exposure to repeated heating.

The Barnham archaeological site was first identified in the late 1800s, when ancient elephant tools were found there.

Sarah Hlubik, a pyroarchaeologist from St. Mary’s College of Maryland, who was not involved in the study, expressed her enthusiasm about the discovery, stating to AFP, “This is a really exciting find.”

But it took four years of painstaking work to prove the heated clay was not caused by wildfire.

“The big turning point came with the discovery of iron pyrite,” Ashton said.

This mineral is used to create the spark to light tinder. It is also very rare in the area, indicating that ancient humans brought it to the site, the researchers said.

They also found fire-cracked hand axes that could have struck the pyrite.

Sarah Hlubik, a pyroarchaeologist at St Mary’s College of Maryland in the United States not involved in the research, told AFP: “This is a really exciting find.”

An archeologist holding a small arrow-shaped stone between his fingers.

The earliest known evidence of fire-making by humans has been discovered at a disused clay pit near Barnham, Suffolk, indicating humans were making fire 350,000 years earlier than previously known. Source: AAP / Jordan Mansfield

Being able to start our own fires, rather than grabbing burning branches from a naturally lit blaze, provided many benefits that likely influenced human history.

The fire’s warmth allowed humans to explore farther into colder areas, the researchers said.

The ability to make fire also provided a place for humans to gather after dark, likely making us more talkative and social.

Everyone “can connect with the idea of a group of humans around a campfire, it’s something we’ve all experienced,” Ashton said.

But perhaps the most important change was in our diets.

“We are the only things on the planet that rely on cooked food,” Hlubik said.

Cooking food, particularly meat, saved energy previously used on digestion, which is believed to have helped develop our bigger, more powerful brains.

There is fossil evidence from around 400,000 years ago suggesting that humans’ brains were approaching their modern size, the researchers said.

Neanderthals not so dumb

While the identity of the Barnham fire-starters is unknown, the researchers think they were likely Neanderthals based on nearby fossils.

There has been a long-running debate about whether Neanderthals could make fire, with sites in France once used to cast doubt on their abilities.

But this discovery “negates the argument that they just never had that technology”, Hlubik said.

It also adds to a recent “reevaluation” of Neanderthals, who were long dismissed as overly primitive, according to study co-author Chris Stringer of the British Museum.

But the new evidence “fits with the picture of a more complex model of Neanderthal behaviour, and increases their similarity to us,” he said.