“This site, dating back 400,000 years, represents the earliest known evidence of fire not just in Britain and Europe but across the globe,” stated Nick Ashton, co-author of the study and curator at the British Museum. He noted that this discovery pushes back the timeline of when our ancestors might have first harnessed fire by approximately 350,000 years.

Researchers are uncertain about the uses of fire by these hominin ancestors. They may have roasted meat, crafted tools, or shared narratives under its glow.

Understanding when our ancestors mastered the use of fire is crucial to unraveling the complexities of human evolution and behavior.

One hypothesis suggests that the ability to start fire contributed to the increase in brain size among early humans, as cooking facilitates easier digestion and boosts caloric intake. Another theory posits that controlling fire may have fostered social gathering spots at night, boosting social behavior and cognitive evolution.

“We know brain size was increasing towards its current capacity during this period,” remarked Chris Stringer, research head in human evolution at London’s Natural History Museum and another author of the Nature study. “The brain is energetically costly, consuming about 20 percent of the body’s energy. Thus, the ability to use fire enhances nutrient absorption from food, provides energy for the brain, and allows for the evolution of larger brains.”

Stringer emphasized that this finding does not signify the beginning of fire usage among humans but is merely the earliest instance researchers can confidently point to. Other early indications of fire use have been found in regions of South Africa, Israel, and Kenya, though these are contentious and open to interpretation.

From an archaeological standpoint, it’s challenging to ascertain the cause of wildfires or whether they were initiated by humans.

“The key question is whether they collected it from a natural source, managed it, or created it themselves. On the surface, this appears to be a robust case suggesting that the group knew how to start fires,” noted Dennis Sandogyas, a senior lecturer in the archaeology department at Simon Fraser University in Canada, who was not part of the study.

In the recent Nature study, researchers highlight the presence of deposits with fire residue, fire-cracked stone tools including a flint hatchet, and two small fragments of pyrite likely brought to the site by humans for fire-making, as indicated by geological analysis.

Other outside researchers expressed skepticism.

Much of the evidence presented is “circumstantial,” wrote Will Loebloeks, a professor emeritus of paleolithic archaeology at Leiden University in the Netherlands, in an email.

Lowbrokes pointed out that later Neanderthal sites, dating to around 50,000 years ago, showed flint tools with wear signs indicating they had been struck against pyrite to produce sparks, an indication of humans creating fire. This evidence isn’t present in the current study.

“While the authors conducted thorough analysis of the Burnham data, they seem to be overstating claims by suggesting this is the ‘earliest evidence of a fire outbreak,'” Lobruks noted.

For our ancestors, fire was vital for warmth, nutrition, deterring predators, and even melting resins used in adhesives.

However, Sandgate emphasized that the evolution of fire-starting is not a straightforward path; it included sporadic adaptations and innovations. Evidence exists that early groups who learned to create fire sometimes lost that ability or ceased its use for cultural reasons.

“We must be cautious not to generalize any single instance … as proof that from this moment forward everyone will know how to start a fire,” Sandogyas remarked, referencing nearly 100 modern hunter-gatherer groups that have been meticulously observed. Some lacked the ability to generate fire.

“It’s probable that the art of fire-making was discovered, lost, rediscovered, and lost again across various groups over time. Its history is undoubtedly intricate.”