Humans started using fire regularly about 350,000 years ago, suggests a team of researchers from the University of Haifa, Israel, who examined artifacts at the Tabun Cave, one of the Human Evolution sites at Mount Carmel. Human evolution was markedly accelerated by the mastery of fire. It is difficult to pinpoint when the fire started because there are many evidence points that point at different times. If, as the latest study suggest, we started mastering fire 350,000 years ago, it may suffice to explain how our culture and behavior developed, but not our large brains or our expansion into the colder regions of Earth. In 2012., the Tabun Cave was declared to have universal value by UNESCO. It is located in southern Israel about 24 km from Haifa. It provides us with a time-lapse video of human history dating back 500,000 years. ScienceMag quotes Ron Shimelmitz from the University of Haifa, coauthor of the study and an archeologist. He said that Tabun Cave was unique because it has a long sequence. It was possible to examine the evolution of the fire in the cave step-by-step. Experts differ on when the first humans were able to use fire. They examined the flint tools that were found in caves, and also the flint materials created at their time. To determine the age of fire, they examined the flints found in the lowest 16 metres. Nearly none of the flints were burned in layers older than about 350,000 years. They did however find signs of fire in all layers after this period. Researchers believe wildfires are rare in caves so humans may have controlled them. According to the researchers, an increase in burnt flints indicates that fire control was a skill our forefathers learned. Either they lit it, or left fires burning outside. Shimelmitz thinks that ancestral people learned how to control fire quickly from evidence at other locations and the Tabun Cave’s detailed records. Before 350,000 years ago, ancestral humans probably used fire if they came across it, but as there is no evidence of artifacts exposed to burning, they probably did not use it routinely. Evidence suggests that humans expanded to colder climates many thousands of years ago before fire was invented. For years, experts have been divided on the date when fire was first discovered by humans. Richard Wrangham of Harvard University believes this happened earlier than 350,000 years ago, while others think it happened more recently. It remains to be determined if this new study will settle any disputes. In an Abstract in Journal of Human Evolution, the authors concluded: “While hominins may have used fire occasionally, perhaps opportunistically, for some million years, we argue here that it only became a consistent element in behavioral adaptations during the second part of the Middle Pleistocene.” Citation: “‘Fire at will’: The emergence of habitual fire use 350,000 years ago,” Ron Shimelmitza, Steven L. Kuhnb, Arthur J. Jelinekb, Avraham Ronena, Amy E. Clarkb, and Mina Weinstein-Evrona. Journal of Human Evolution Volume 77, December 2014, Pages doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.07. 005
Fire was mastered about 350,000 years ago, Tabun study suggests
