🇺🇸▼
About 400,000 years ago, a group of Neandertals made a camp in southern England. They chose a spot near a water hole in a grassy field. These early humans did not just find fire; they made it themselves. They hit chunks of iron pyrite against flint stones to create sparks. These sparks were strong enough to light large campfires. The group did this repeatedly, demonstrating that they had mastered the skill.
A close look at the ancient burn marks reveals something amazing: they are the oldest clear proof that ancient human relatives made fire on purpose. This discovery changes how we understand the history of human technology. Nick Ashton, an archaeologist at the British Museum, explains that intentionally starting fires represents a major shift. His team carefully analyzed the remains, which included the tools used to strike sparks and chemical traces left by the burns.
Before this new discovery, the oldest known use of these tools came from northern France. Those artifacts were made by Neandertals about 50,000 years ago. The new discovery in Barnham, England, changes this timeline completely, extending the history of fire-making back another 350,000 years. Ashton's group shared their important findings in January 2023, publishing the work in the scientific journal Nature.
What makes this find remarkable is that it is the first excellent evidence of fire-making from such an ancient period. This distinction is vital. Marie Soressi, an archaeologist at Leiden University, agrees on its importance. She states that having control over fire is a game-changer, transforming human evolution in profound ways.
The Barnham site has long been known for its ancient stone tools. In 2014, Ashton and his team found heat-shattered flint there. These broken pieces of stone suggested that fire had been present. At the time, they could not be sure it had not come from natural causes. Three years later, the team discovered bits of iron pyrite. These small shards can be used to strike sparks.
Small bits of iron pyrite were found at the site in Barnham, England. Researchers believe these fragments, one of which is shown above, probably broke off from a chunk about the size of a baseball.
In 2021, the team had "the first proper breakthrough." They spotted reddened clay in a previously overlooked area. Chemical analysis hinted that the sediment had been heated many times, with temperatures reaching more than 700 degrees Celsius (nearly 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit). Iron pyrite is extremely rare in this area, suggesting that the stone had been brought there by humans.
Few human remains have been preserved at Barnham. The ancient campfires there date to a warm period between ice ages, when the climate was milder than the freezing winters of an ice age. However, the age of the fire remains and tools offers clues to who left them. Researchers believe the fire makers were early Neandertals, a group that was a close cousin to modern humans.
Many questions remain about early fire use. Did fire-making knowledge spread quickly among groups of people, or did it arise multiple times in isolated communities? Soressi suspects it was invented and then lost, believing that because groups back then were very small, losing their knowledge might have caused it to disappear completely.
Even so, Ashton thinks future discoveries may reveal that fire-making was more common. He believes we often underestimate the abilities of our ancestors. This discovery shows that our ancestors were not just surviving; they were innovating. They solved problems and created new technologies hundreds of thousands of years before modern humans appeared. The ability to control fire changed everything. It provided warmth, light, and protection, allowed for cooking (which transformed the human diet), and likely helped human brains grow. The Neandertals of Barnham were among the first to harness this power.