Study Pushes Europe’s Earliest Fire-Making Back to 400,000 Years

Overview

• A British Museum–led team reports in Nature that Barnham, Suffolk preserves repeated hearths created by early hominins.
• Chemical and microscopic analyses identify concentrated burned sediments alongside flint handaxes fractured by heat.
• Two fragments of iron pyrite—rare at the site—were likely carried in to strike sparks against flint.
• The claim shifts Europe’s best-supported evidence for deliberate fire-making from roughly 50,000 years to about 400,000 years.
• Researchers infer Neanderthal-related groups were responsible, and outside specialists describe wide-ranging evolutionary effects from controlled fire.