Dec 11, 2025
3 min read
415,000 years ago, Neanderthals lit a fire in an area near a spring.
Archaeologists say they have found the oldest evidence of intentional burning.According to that, Neanderthals came from England,
The discovery is described in an article published this Wednesday (10) in the journal Nature.The evidence analyzed by the authors is from the Burnham site, which dates to the end of the 19th century.
In 2021, the first indication of a possible fire came with the detection of deliberately heated sediments.After four years of detailed work, it was proved that this ash was not of natural origin.
"The key moment was the discovery of iron pyrait," declared archaeologist Nick Ashton, curator of Paleolithic collections in the British Museum in London and major author of the new research."We think they [Neanderthals] brought pirit to the site with the intention to make fire. And this has huge implications."
Pyrite, a mineral used to make sparks, is extremely rare in the area, suggesting it was deliberately brought to the site.There were also stone forms on the site that could have been used to crush the mineral.
The researchers say all these is from a frame of fire is used as a golf course whereas nailshals are camp.
Until then, the oldest known practice of firefighting was about 50,000 years ago in a place in Northern France, attributed to the Neanderthals.
The controlled use of fire was revolutionary for the human evolutionary line.It allowed for cooking, provided protection from predators, and provided warmth, helping hunter-gatherers to thrive in areas with cooler climates.
For example, when cookingOur ancestors were able to remove germs from meat and toxins from edible roots and tubers.This process is now common practice.Makes food softer and more digestible.It releases the body's energy from the intestines to promote brain development.
According to the researchers, being able to consume a variety of foods contributed to better survival and allowed larger groups of people to feed.
Fire could also contribute to social development.Its use at night contributed to socialization, leading to things like storytelling and the development of language and belief systems.
"The bonfire would have been a social center," said British Museum archaeologist Rob Davies, co-author of the study.
"We're surrounded by creatures that shape the world around us," he said, adding that the new discovery species is common in prisons, including Homo saapiens, other humans and Neanderthals, and other humans and other relatives such as monkeys.
The Palaeolithic site of Barnham is the best known fossil of Homo Sapiens in Africa.
Scientists believe that Neanderthals, our closest evolutionary cousins, are proof of the intelligence and intelligence of these ancient people.
No human fossil remains have been found at the Barnham site, said paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer, a co-author of the study, but skull fragments with Neanderthal features and about 400,000 years old were found in the mid-20th century in the town of Swanscombe, less than 100 miles away.
According to Stringer, the Swanscombe skull fragments match Neanderthal fossils from a site near Burgos, Spain, which are dated to about 430,000 years ago.
Neanderthals died out around 39,000 years ago, shortly after Homo sapiens had spread across Europe.Their heritage is present in the genomes of most populations, due to the relationship between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
Previous archaeological work at the site has given scientists a better understanding of what the site looked like at the time Agni was built, with a variety of animals from elephants to small mammals and birds, as well as evidence of human activity in the form of marks cut into animal bones.
There is archaeological evidence that people in Africa more than a million years ago used wildfires or natural fires caused by lightning, but these sites show no evidence of intentional fires.
Investigators conducted four years of tests to show that Burnham's evidence showed the fire was intentionally set.According to them, several lines of evidence have confirmed this, including geochemical tests that have shown temperatures exceeding 700 degrees Celsius when fires were repeatedly used at the same site.
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