Neanderthals were the world's first innovators in the field of fire technology, as evidenced by tiny evidence in England. Pyrite particles found at a more than 400,000-year-old archaeological site in Suffolk, eastern England, challenge archaeologists' evidence of controlled fire-ignition and suggest key developments in the human brain began much earlier than previously thought.
“We are a species that used fire to truly shape the world around us,” study co-author Rob Davissaid a Paleolithic archaeologist from the British Museum at a press conference on Tuesday (December 9). “Knowing how to make fire would be critical” in human evolutionAccording to Davis, this is an “acceleration of evolutionary trends” such as the development of larger brains, the maintenance of larger social groups and improved language skills.
Since 2013, Davis and his colleagues have been excavating in England at an archaeological site called Barnhamwhere stone tools, burnt sediments and charcoal have been found from 400,000 years ago. In a study published Wednesday (December 10) in the journal NatureResearchers have discovered that the site contains the world's earliest direct evidence of fire – and that this fire technology was likely invented by Neanderthals.
Big turning point
Barnham was first recognized as a Palaeolithic site in the early 1900s due to the presence of stone tools. But recent excavations have uncovered evidence of ancient groups of people who inhabited the area more than 415,000 years ago, when Barnham was a small seasonal watering hole in a forested depression.
In one corner, archaeologists discovered a cluster of red-hot hand axes, as well as an area of reddened clay. Through a series of scientific analyses, the researchers discovered that the reddened clay had been subjected to repeated local firing, suggesting that the area may have housed an ancient hearth.
“The big turning point came with the discovery of iron pyrite,” study co-author. Nick AshtonThe curator of the Paleolithic collection of the British Museum stated this at a press conference.
Pyrite, also known as “fool's gold”, is a naturally occurring mineral that can produce sparks when hit the flint. Although pyrite is found in many places around the world, it is extremely rare in the Barnham area, meaning someone brought pyrite to the site specifically, likely with the purpose of starting a fire, the researchers said in the study.
Man's use of fire
Because of the importance of controlled fire, paleoanthropologists have long debated the timing of this invention.
“Fire has so many obvious benefits, from cooking to protection from predators, its technological use in creating new types of artifacts, and its ability to bring people together.” April Nowella paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science by email. “We only have to think about how we gathered around a campfire as children to understand its emotional resonance.”
Researchers believe that ancient people first used forest fires for cooking. This was a crucial step in human evolution, as cooking expanded the range of food available and made it more digestible, which in turn provided more nutrients. need to grow a bigger brain– said Davis.
But evidence for the use of intentional early fire technology is limited, and the evidence is often mixed, the researchers noted in the study.
For example, scientists discovered a reddened sediment on Copy forum in Kenya this dates back to approximately 1.5 million years ago. The researchers suggested that this may indicate early use of fire because the key person at this site is The man stood up – had a pretty big brain. And in two sites Burnt animal bones and stone tools in Israel dating back to about 800,000 years ago suggest that human ancestors living there controlled fire.
Fire equipment then exploded about 400,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found traces of burning in caves in France, Portugal, Spain, Ukraine and Great Britain, and then the wider use of fire in Europe, Africa and the Levant (region of the eastern Mediterranean) 200,000 years ago.
But these previous examples do not show the same strong geochemical evidence of fire as was found at Barnham, Ashton argues. He called the team's careful analysis of the Barnham sediment and identification of pyrite “the most exciting discovery of my 40-year career.”
Neanderthals are “fully human”
However, all the bones at Barnham have since disintegrated, so no “smoking gun” of butchered and burnt animal bones was found that could prove the site was used for cooking.
This also means that there are no remains of the fire organizers themselves in Barnham, but co-author of the study Chris Stringera paleoanthropologist from the National History Museum in London has a guess as to their identity.
“We speculate that the Barnham fires were started by early Neanderthals,” Stringer said at a news conference based on a nearby site called Swanscombewhere Neanderthal skull bones dating from the same time period as Barnham were discovered.
Although experts have known for about a decade that some Neanderthals knew how to make fire, this evidence only dates back to 50,000 years. Barnham's findings push this date back by 350,000 years, suggesting that Neanderthals were much smarter than most people believe them.
Neanderthals are “fully human,” Stringer said. “They have complex behavior, they adapt to new environments, and their brains are as big as ours. These are very developed people.”
Nowell said the study's findings add fuel to the broader debate about Neanderthals' control of fire and its social and cultural uses.
“There is a lot of debate now about whether all Neanderthals made fire or whether only some Neanderthals at certain times and in certain places made fire,” Nowell said. The new study “provides another important source of data in our understanding of Neanderthal pyrotechnic abilities, with all the cognitive, social and technological implications that this entails.”
Who was the first to make fire?
If researchers are correct that Neanderthals made fire from flint and pyrite more than 400,000 years ago in England, that raises further questions, Nowell said.
“Despite the obvious benefits, questions remain about the nature of the early use of fire: when did the use of fire become a regular part of the human behavioral repertoire? Did early humans depend on the opportunistic use of forest fires and lightning strikes? Was the fire re-opened several times?” Nowell said.
Ancestors wise man were I live in Africa 400,000 years ago and are unlikely to have interacted with early Neanderthals half a world away.
“We don't know if wise man had the ability to produce fire at that time,” Stringer said, since there is no clear evidence to date that fire could have been controlled before Barnham.
This means that Neanderthals may have developed ways to make and control fire somewhere in continental Europe, which then allowed our human relatives to move further north into England, heating and lighting their way with fire.
“It is likely that the fire became more controlled in Europe and spread to Africa,” Ashton said. “We have to keep an open mind.”
