Aug 22, 2026 06:27 PM
https://www.snexplores.org/article/oldes...n-fire-use
INTRO: A cave in Africa seems to host the oldest known traces of humans using fire. Burnt remnants of animal bones hint that groups of Homo erectus used fires here as long as 1.8 million years ago.
The site is known as Wonderwerk Cave. It’s in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The oldest previously known traces of our early relatives using fire also came from there. Those dated to about 1 million years ago.
The new evidence comes from an earlier, deeper level of sediment in that cave. These traces of fire could be anywhere from 1.07 to 1.79 million years old. But “I’m very comfortable saying it was between 1.7 and 1.8 million years ago,” says Michael Chazan. This archaeologist works at the University of Toronto in Canada. He leads excavations at Wonderwerk Cave.
Chazan was part of a team that shared the new findings June 1 in PLoS One.
The researchers don’t think H. erectus lit the fires. The earliest evidence of people using iron pyrite to make sparks dates to about 400,000 years ago. So people in the Wonderwerk Cave probably carried in flames from wildfires, Chazan says. “This is not human ignition of fire. It’s collecting a fire on the landscape.” (MORE - details)
INTRO: A cave in Africa seems to host the oldest known traces of humans using fire. Burnt remnants of animal bones hint that groups of Homo erectus used fires here as long as 1.8 million years ago.
The site is known as Wonderwerk Cave. It’s in the Northern Cape province of South Africa. The oldest previously known traces of our early relatives using fire also came from there. Those dated to about 1 million years ago.
The new evidence comes from an earlier, deeper level of sediment in that cave. These traces of fire could be anywhere from 1.07 to 1.79 million years old. But “I’m very comfortable saying it was between 1.7 and 1.8 million years ago,” says Michael Chazan. This archaeologist works at the University of Toronto in Canada. He leads excavations at Wonderwerk Cave.
Chazan was part of a team that shared the new findings June 1 in PLoS One.
The researchers don’t think H. erectus lit the fires. The earliest evidence of people using iron pyrite to make sparks dates to about 400,000 years ago. So people in the Wonderwerk Cave probably carried in flames from wildfires, Chazan says. “This is not human ignition of fire. It’s collecting a fire on the landscape.” (MORE - details)
