Humans learned to light fire 400,000 years ago

The human ability to make fire is one of the crucial turning points in human history, making it easier not only to keep warm but also to socialize and cook food, an aspect that contributed to the evolution of the brain.

There are traces of the use of fire by humans up to a million years ago, in Africa, but it is considered that it was fire that arose naturally.

Finding solid evidence of this ability is very difficult, due to the disappearance of the traces over time.

This is what a team of researchers from the British Museum was able to demonstrate, at a site near the town of Barnham, in Suffolk (northeast of London).

Previous evidence of deliberate fire lighting It was about 50,000 years ago in present-day France.

“It is the most extraordinary discovery of my 40-year career,” Nick Ashton, curator at the British Museum and lead author of the study published Wednesday in Nature, congratulated at a press conference.

Researchers think that the hominid capable of controlling fire was a Neanderthalsince fossils of him were found nearby.

The Barnham site was first discovered in the late 19th century. The first hint suggesting it may have housed a bonfire appeared in 2021, when scientists discovered sediments that were intentionally heated.

After four years of meticulous work, it was proven that these ashes were not caused naturally.

“The key moment was the discovery of iron pyrite”Ashton explained.

That mineral is used to create the spark that ignites the fire. Pyrite is very scarce in that region, which indicates that it was brought to the place with that objective, they emphasize.

They also found axes that could have been used to crush the pyrite.

Sarah Hlubik, a pyroarchaeologist at Saint Mary’s College of Maryland, in the United States, who is not involved in the study, told AFP that it is “a truly exciting discovery.”

Knowing how to create your own fire, instead of waiting for nature to create it, changed the evolution of humanity.

The heat made it easier to explore new, colder territories. The humans were able to congregate as night fell.

But the main advance was the change in the diet, since “we are the only beings on earth related to cooked foods,” Hlubik stressed.

Cooking food, especially meat, made it easier to save energy previously allocated to digestion, which contributed to intellectual development.