Up to their new tricks

Over the past week, the media have been reporting on a new discovery — that 450,000 years ago, Neanderthals were generating fire, far earlier than previously known.

The site, Barnham in eastern England, has yielded pieces of pyrite that were used to create sparks to light fires. We humans are not adapted to the cold.

The warmth of a fire is one way of surviving, as are shelters and clothing and at Prezletice in the Czech Republic, the stone foundations of a dwelling have been found. Measuring 4m×3m, it contained a fireplace and it is thought likely that it gave shelter during the cold winters 700,000 years ago. In the Near East and Europe, archaeologists have found several sites that illuminate the lives of early humans, some being where they lived, and others are where they hunted.

We will find them making fire, hunting with sharpened wooden spears, flaking hundreds of stone tools and even expanding north into seasonal hunting grounds where the climate was much colder in winter. At Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel, concentrations of flint tools have been found that were modified by heat. The inhabitants of that lakeside settlement 800,000 years ago used fire, a skill with a long previous history in their African homeland, for evidence of fire comes from Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa a million years ago.

Fire is, of course, a natural phenomenon, particularly following lightning strikes, and doubtless our early ancestors were well aware of its value. Cooking meat makes it more digestible. Fire can be used as a defence against night time predators and to populate cold regions.

Most Neanderthal living sites are found in the forefront of caves, where the overhang provided shelter. Excavations have uncovered a distinctive pattern within their homes, of spaced hearths lining the walls, to provide warm single-sleeping places.

The central area was for cooking, eating and socialising. At the Reindeer Cave at Arcy-sur-Cure in France, they constructed a row of upright mammoth tusks, probably to support a screen against the icy winter wind.

This site also contained a Neanderthal home and by counting the number of hearth spaces, it is estimated that a Neanderthal social group would have had 10-25 people. What the new discovery suggests, therefore, is that early Neanderthals had discovered how to create fire, rather than wait for lightning or a volcanic eruption.