Humans
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Long before humans figured out how to make fire from scratch, they learned to transport burning embers from wildfires into their caves, where they kept the flame burning for as long as they could. New evidence from Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa suggests this practice may have begun almost 1.8 million years ago with Homo erectus.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Worldwide, the earliest known evidence for the controlled use of fire by humans comes from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel, where archaeologists have discovered the remains of hearths dating back 800,000 years. However, previous research at Wonderwerk has indicated that hominins may have been opportunistically bringing burning material into the cave a million years ago, even if they hadn’t yet become the element’s master.
At other sites like Swartkrans Cave in South Africa and Koobi Fora in Kenya, meanwhile, there is data to suggest that uncontrolled fire use may have begun as early as 1.5 million years ago, although not all scholars accept this theory. What we do know, however, is that hearths are absent from the African archaeological record at this time, indicating that hominins like Homo erectus weren’t capable of starting their own campfires.
Re-examining charred animal bones from Wonderwerk Cave, the authors of a new study developed a new technique to reliably identify traces of fire use. Using bone luminescence properties and Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy, the researchers found that the remains of numerous small mammals in strata 10 and 11 at the site were clearly subjected to burning.
Given that stratum 11 dates to between 1.07 and 1.79 million years ago, these findings indicate that the cave’s prehistoric inhabitants may have been using fire hundreds of millennia earlier than previously thought.
If the dating (1.8 million years) and, above all, the intentionality of introducing fire into the cave are confirmed, we would be facing a milestone that would change the course of prehistory.
Juan Manuel Jiménez Arenas
“Fire in [stratum] 11 pushes back the age of the earliest evidence for fire and indicates that fire was repeatedly brought by hominins into the interior of Wonderwerk Cave,” write the study authors. “They introduced fire – probably acquired from wildfires outside the cave – into the shelter and maintained it until it burnt out,” continue the researchers.
And while there’s no evidence of cooking inside the cave, the fact that the burnt bones were found in close association with Acheulean stone tools – thought to have been made by Homo erectus – confirms that hominins were responsible for the charring. Furthermore, the combustion features were all discovered at least 30 meters (100 feet) from the entrance of the cave, well beyond the reach of any external wildfires. The only way they could possibly have come into contact with flames, therefore, is through human activity.
“The repetition of this thermal signature across space and time, combined with the broader archaeological context, offers compelling support for intentional fire introduction and use by early Acheulean hominins, most likely Homo erectus, on more than one occasion,” write the researchers.
Commenting on these findings, University of Granada professor of archaeology Juan Manuel Jiménez Arenas – who wasn't involved in the study – explained in a statement that "if the dating (1.8 million years) and, above all, the intentionality of introducing fire into the cave are confirmed, we would be facing a milestone that would change the course of prehistory".
"Prior to this article, no fires involving human activity of such antiquity had been recognized."
The study has been published in the journal PLOS One.
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