{"id":2121,"date":"2025-12-22T13:22:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T07:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ainews.prativad.com\/index.php\/scientists-shatter-timeline-of-human-fire-making-with-400000-year-old-discovery-in-england\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T13:22:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T07:52:21","slug":"scientists-shatter-timeline-of-human-fire-making-with-400000-year-old-discovery-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ainews.prativad.com\/index.php\/scientists-shatter-timeline-of-human-fire-making-with-400000-year-old-discovery-in-england\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists shatter timeline of human fire-making with 400,000-year-old discovery in England"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

Scientists recently discovered what may be the earliest evidence of deliberate fire-making by humans \u2014 and it’s far older than scholars previously believed.<\/p>\n

The study, which was published in the journal Nature on Dec. 10, centered around a site in Barnham, England, that dates to the Paleolithic era<\/a>, the longest era of human prehistory.<\/p>\n

Although the Paleolithic spans from about 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago, the newly uncovered evidence is dated to roughly 400,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

Until now, the earliest known evidence of deliberate fire-making dated to about 50,000 years ago in northern France, which makes the new discovery a major chronological shift.<\/p>\n

ARCHAEOLOGISTS FIND ARTIFACTS OLDER THAN STONEHENGE BENEATH BRITAIN’S HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT: ‘INCREDIBLY RARE’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

During the excavation, a team led by the British Museum found flint hand axes, a patch of baked clay and fragments of iron pyrite. The iron pyrite was likely struck against flint to produce fire.<\/p>\n

Archaeologists found the burned deposits within the sediment of ancient ponds, which helped preserve the evidence hundreds of thousands of years later.<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR LIFESTYLE NEWSLETTER<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists found that, rather than being proof of ancient wildfires or lightning strikes, the spot showed evidence of repeated burning.<\/p>\n

According to geochemical tests, the sediments showed that heat exceeded 1,292 degrees Fahrenheit, which suggested localized, high-intensity fire rather than a natural event.<\/p>\n

Rob Davis, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the British Museum,<\/a> told The Associated Press that the recently-gathered evidence shows “how they were actually making the fire and the fact they were making it.”<\/p>\n

CLICK HERE FOR MORE LIFESTYLE STORIES<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In addition to allowing early humans to cook food, fires also helped them survive cold temperatures and scare off predators.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Killing toxins and pathogens during the cooking process was also a major key to survival.<\/p>\n

The results at Barnham, archaeologists say, are part of a wider pattern across Britain and continental Europe between 500,000 and 400,000 years ago, when early human brain size increased and more complex behaviors \u2014 like fire-making \u2014 began to emerge.<\/p>\n

TEST YOURSELF WITH OUR LATEST LIFESTYLE QUIZ<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

For example, iron pyrite is not native to Barnham, which suggests that early humans deliberately collected it to start fires.<\/p>\n

“[It’s] the most exciting discovery of my long 40-year career,” British Museum curator Nick Ashton told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

The Barnham discovery joins a wave of remarkable prehistoric finds uncovered in 2025.<\/p>\n

This spring, Texas officials found “colossal” megafauna bones<\/a> while working on a planned state highway.<\/p>\n

More recently, Northern Irish schoolchildren recently came across prehistoric artifacts<\/a> while searching for a long-lost castle.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed reporting.<\/i><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The earliest evidence of deliberate fire-making by humans was discovered at 400,000-year-old site in Barnham, England, pushing back the timeline by 350,000 years from previous findings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"yoast_head":"\nScientists shatter timeline of human fire-making with 400,000-year-old discovery in England - Leading the AI News Frontier<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ainews.prativad.com\/index.php\/scientists-shatter-timeline-of-human-fire-making-with-400000-year-old-discovery-in-england\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scientists shatter timeline of human fire-making with 400,000-year-old discovery in England - 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