Davis, Rob;
Hatch, Marcus;
Hoare, Sally;
Lewis, Simon G;
Lucas, Claire;
Parfitt, Simon A;
Bello, Silvia M;
... Ashton, Nick; + view all
(2025)
Earliest evidence of making fire.
Nature
10.1038/s41586-025-09855-6.
(In press).
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Davis et al 2025 Earliest evidence of making fire Nature AAM.pdf - Accepted Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 11 June 2026. Download (870kB) |
Abstract
Fire-making is a uniquely human innovation that stands apart from other complex behaviours such as tool production, symbolic culture and social communication. Controlled fire use provided adaptive opportunities that had profound effects on human evolution. Benefits included warmth, protection from predators, cooking and creation of illuminated spaces that became focal points for social interaction1,2,3. Fire use developed over a million years, progressing from harvesting natural fire to maintaining and ultimately making fire4. However, determining when and how fire use evolved is challenging because natural and anthropogenic burning are hard to distinguish5,6,7. Although geochemical methods have improved interpretations of heated deposits, unequivocal evidence of deliberate fire-making has remained elusive. Here we present evidence of fire-making on a 400,000-year-old buried landsurface at Barnham (UK), where heated sediments and fire-cracked flint handaxes were found alongside two fragments of iron pyrite—a mineral used in later periods to strike sparks with flint. Geological studies show that pyrite is locally rare, suggesting it was brought deliberately to the site for fire-making. The emergence of this technological capability provided important social and adaptive benefits, including the ability to cook food on demand—particularly meat—thereby enhancing digestibility and energy availability, which may have been crucial for hominin brain evolution 3.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Earliest evidence of making fire |
| Location: | England |
| DOI: | 10.1038/s41586-025-09855-6 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09855-6 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology > Institute of Archaeology Gordon Square |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10219125 |
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