Nick Ashton, curator at the British Museum, on 400,000-year-old site: “we have the earliest evidence of making fire”

Learning how to make fire from scratch was a huge leap forward for early hominids, providing them with a source of warmth, protection from animals, and a way to cook and preserve food. A team of archaeologists say that artifacts found in Barnham, England pushes back the earliest known date of hominids deliberately making fire some 350,000 years.

Excavations at the site in Suffolk showed that around 400,000 years ago, a group of hominids, most likely some of the oldest Neandertal groups, were consistently making fires. “It’s the most exciting discovery of my 40-year career,” said Nick Ashton, curator of Palaeolithic Collections at the British Museum.

Earliest evidence of making fire

The researchers have been working for the past four years to prove that the evidence that they accumulated at the archaeological site in Barnham wasn’t the result of naturally occurring wildfires but by hominids. At the location they found a patch of heated clay, which geochemical tests showed had been repeatedly exposed to temperatures over 700º Celsius. This indicated that it was the site of a campfire or hearth.

Furthermore, two key finds at the sight were flint handaxes and pieces of iron pyrite, which they were able to prove the latter was not a common mineral in that location. When iron pyrite is struck against flint, it creates a spark that can be used ignite tinder.

Furthermore, the handaxes had markings on them that were a sign they had been struck with the iron pyrite, showing that these early hominids had knowledge of their properties.

“It’s incredible that some of the oldest groups of Neanderthals had the knowledge of the properties of flint, pyrite and tinder at such an early date,” said Ashton in a press release.

“This is a 400,000-year-old site where we have the earliest evidence of making fire, not just in Britain or Europe, but in fact, anywhere else in the world,” he added.

Prior to their findings, the oldest known evidence of fire-making was found in Northern France from around 50,000 years ago.

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