400,000-Year-Old Hearth Identified in England

SUFFOLK, ENGLAND—A hearth dated to 400,000 years ago has been unearthed near the village of Barnham in eastern England, CNN reports. Heat-shattered flint axes and two pieces of pyrite, thought to have been used to create sparks, were also uncovered. Iron pyrite is not available in the area and would have been brought to the site. Nick Ashton of the British Museum said that the hearth, which contains hydrocarbons from burned wood and signs of repeated burning, is the earliest evidence for the controlled use of fire in the world. No hominin remains have been found in Barnham, so it is not clear who started the fires in the hearth. However, Neanderthal fossils dated to the same time period have been unearthed about 80 miles away. “I think many of us had a hunch that there was regular use of fire in Europe around 400,000 years ago. But we didn’t have the evidence,” Ashton said. The previous oldest known fire-making site, dated to 50,000 years ago, is in northern France. Evidence for fires dating to more than 800,000 years ago has been found at archaeological sites in Israel, Kenya, and South Africa, but researchers have not determined that the fires at these sites were started and controlled by humans. For more, go to "Evolve and Catch Fire."