Humans were making fire 400,000 years ago, research suggests, after the discovery in the UK of ancient axes created using flames.
The find, at a disused clay pit near Barnham, in west Suffolk, indicates humans were making fire 350,000 years earlier than previously known. Before this discovery, the oldest known evidence of fire-making was from 50,000 years ago in northern France.
Fire-cracked flint hand axes and heated sediments were found at the Barnham site alongside two fragments of iron pyrite – a mineral used to strike sparks with flint. Geological studies indicate that pyrite is rare in the area, suggesting it was brought to the site deliberately for fire-making.
It took four years for a team, led by researchers at the British Museum, to demonstrate that the heated clay was not caused by wildfire.
Geochemical tests indicated repeated fires at the same site, more typical of human use than wildfires. The controlled use of fire had “profound effects on human evolution”, say the study’s authors, increasing survival in harsh environments through warmth and protection from predators.
Other benefits included cooking – widening the range of foods that could be safely eaten – and the creation of lit spaces that became focal points for social interaction.
Dr Rob Davis, project curator of Pathways to Ancient Britain at the British Museum, said the hearth area was about “half a metre in diameter, sort of a small campfire”.
Prof Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, said it is thought that the fires at Barnham were being made by early Neanderthals. “Around this time period, brain size was increasing to its present levels,” said Prof Stringer. “There’s no doubt that our brains are energetically expensive.
“They use about 20 per cent of our body energy, so having the use of fire, having the ability to make fire, is going to help release nutrition from the food which will help to fuel that brain, help to run it and indeed allow the evolution of a bigger brain.
“Yes, there’s a gap of maybe 350,000 [years] until the next best evidence, but of course we’re not saying there wasn’t a use of fire earlier on. And of course we’re not saying fire was … invented at Barnham. We assume that the people who made the fire at Barnham brought the knowledge with them from continental Europe. There was a land bridge there.
“There had been a major cold stage about 450,000 years ago which had probably wiped out everyone in Britain and then Britain had to be repopulated all over again.”
He said that using fire would have helped people “moving to places where the winters are going to be colder”.
“When you’ve got fire you can keep warm, you can keep wild animals away, you get more nutrition from your food," he added. "I think all of these things fed into a feedback where the brain is going to get larger, people are going to be sitting around the fires sharing information, having extra time beyond pure daylight to make things, to teach things, to communicate with each other, to tell stories maybe.
“It may have even fuelled the development of language. I think having this information that it was there 400,000 years ago really means we’ve got a key aspect, a crucial aspect in human evolution.”
Prof Nick Ashton, curator of Palaeolithic Collections at the British Museum, said it was the “most exciting discovery of my 40-year career”.
The paper, Earliest Evidence of Making Fire, is published in the Nature journal.
