Archeologists find what they think is evidence of fire-making by early Neanderthals
Archeologists have found a Neanderthal campsite from 400,000 years ago that shows strong evidence of the ability to make fire.
The researchers found two fragments of pyrite, a mineral that can produce sparks when struck against flint, indicating that the early Neanderthals used them as “a fire-making kit.” These ancient deposits mark the earliest known evidence of fire-making, roughly 400,000 years ago.
…The Barnham site lies in a disused clay pit in Suffolk, UK, preserving traces of the period around 427,000 to 415,000 years ago. In this area, the team found a small patch of reddened sediment, about the size of a modest campfire, surrounded by two pyrites, 19 flints, and four broken hand axes, showing clear signs of heating. Pyrites are rare locally, and the early Neanderthals likely carried them in from elsewhere.
Previously, the earliest known evidence of the ability to make fire had been dated from 50,000 years ago, and was done by homo sapiens, not Neanderthals.
Analysis of the sediment said the heat there matched that of a campfire, not a wildfire. The data also said the spot had been used repeatedly.
This one campsite suggests Neanderthals in general had the knowledge and tools to make fire, but it also could simply show the work of one particularly smart Neanderthal.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Archeologists have found a Neanderthal campsite from 400,000 years ago that shows strong evidence of the ability to make fire.
The researchers found two fragments of pyrite, a mineral that can produce sparks when struck against flint, indicating that the early Neanderthals used them as “a fire-making kit.” These ancient deposits mark the earliest known evidence of fire-making, roughly 400,000 years ago.
…The Barnham site lies in a disused clay pit in Suffolk, UK, preserving traces of the period around 427,000 to 415,000 years ago. In this area, the team found a small patch of reddened sediment, about the size of a modest campfire, surrounded by two pyrites, 19 flints, and four broken hand axes, showing clear signs of heating. Pyrites are rare locally, and the early Neanderthals likely carried them in from elsewhere.
Previously, the earliest known evidence of the ability to make fire had been dated from 50,000 years ago, and was done by homo sapiens, not Neanderthals.
Analysis of the sediment said the heat there matched that of a campfire, not a wildfire. The data also said the spot had been used repeatedly.
This one campsite suggests Neanderthals in general had the knowledge and tools to make fire, but it also could simply show the work of one particularly smart Neanderthal.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Thus the movie Quest for Fire is completely anachronistic: Neanderthals knew not just how to maintain a fire but make fire an order of magnitude longer ago than when H. sapiens appeared on the scene—nor did neanderthals need the latter’s help.
Michael McNeil,
The advance of science has long had a side-effect of rendering works of fiction moot. Science fiction has been the field most directly and pervasively affected. The early planetary science probes rendered instantly obsolete vast swathes of previous stories of manned spaceflight, for example – no Venusians, no Martians, no Moon Men. Such is life. The stories are still fun reads, though.
There is a concerted effort by woke anthropologists to build up the Neanderthals. Somehow they associate Homo sapiens with white males. The evidence here, two pieces of rock, is weak enough that I completely discount this story..
Bob Wilson: Heh. I have the same sense about the desire to build up the Neanderthals for the same woke reasons, which is why I didn’t link to this story initially. Looking at it again today, the presence of the flints, pyrite, and other evidence suggesting a campsite returned to repeatedly, made me rethink my doubts.
The right way to look at this however is not that the Neanderthals were great, but that the evolution from ape to human was complex in so many ways that it is foolish to think this skill of fire-making occurred simply in one event. I bet it came, was lost, was rediscovered, and finally stuck, after many tens of thousands of years. And the sticking almost certain occurred after the coming of homo sapien.
I honestly don’t think there is any “woke” agenda regarding Neanderthals, only a justifiable redrawing of them as much less of grunting cavemen and of more of a relatively advanced species.
We have recently discovered Neanderthal art, jewellery, and perhaps even musical instruments ( although that is uncertain), what is certain is Neanderthal society was much more complex than previous believed. And some of them must have been attractive.. after all, we all have a small percentage of Neanderthal DNA in our genomes!!
A very happy new year to the BTB readership and our host. Here’s hoping for a peaceful and prosperous 2026!
Yeah– this popped up before Christmas sometime, essentially the same article repeated.
I’d quibble greatly with the definition of “ability to make fire,” and say the 50K year number was grossly underestimated from the start.
They do acknowledge the opportunistic management & use of naturally ocuring fire by our ancestors, for in excess of 1 million years.
Just because you don’t have a “fire-making kit,” composed of what “they” claim was required, doesn’t make it so.
It’s not ‘easy’ to “rub two sticks together,” but it is that simple, for example.
And keeping a naturally derived fire going for lengthy periods of time was a known skill going way back.