Neanderthals were the first to light fire at will, says study

Scientists have long suggested that Neanderthals used fire for various purposes. The same goes forHominins who lived much beforethe Neanderthals. But, now a study has revealed that there was a major difference in the way fire was used by the two groups.

According to the latest research, while Hominins chanced upon fire due to wildfire and fueled it for use, Neanderthals were actually the first who actually knew how to igniteit in the first place.

A new study published in PLOS ONE argues that during the Middle Paleolithic, about 93,000 to 71,000 years ago, Neanderthals living in the Gruta da Oliveira cave in Iberia used fire "in a regular, consistent manner," concluded Diego E. Angelucci, Mariana Nabais and João Zilhão.

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Their study is based on charred animal bones, stone tools – flakes, cleavers, scrapers and more – discovered in the proximity of hearths deep inside the cave.

How unexpected is this? Well, somewhat. We are unsure of when our species first appeared, let alone Neanderthals, but the oldest Neanderthal fossils date back to roughly 430,000 years ago and there is some evidence of hominins using fire far earlier than that.

However, hominins often simply carried back sticks lit on fire by wildfire events and fueled them in some way or the other and then made use of it. But for Neanderthals, evidence suggests that they regularly lit the fire.Consistent use of fire at a specific location suggests the ability to create fire at will. The accumulation of ash in a sedimentary sequence may also reveal this; the heavier the ash, the more likely it was that fire was utilised there frequently.

According to Zilhão, "the evidence for regular and consistent use of fire prior to approximately 400,000 years ago is both scant and debatable". "My own inclination is to believe that fire use must date back to early Homo times 1.5 to 2 million years ago."

Evidence we have so far

Ash accrual and burned bones found in Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa suggest fire use a million years ago. Another piece of evidence is from almost 800,000 years ago, of Israel’s Gesher Benot Yaakov in the form of burned seeds, wood and flint tools.

There has been some controversy from almost half a million years ago from the Zhoukoudian Cave in China.Some argue that Homo erectus pekinensis living there clearly had control over fire, while others argue that they didn’t have control over anything.

So what we have is that Homo erectus or lord knows who in early and middle Pleistocene sites in Africa and the Levant were using fire, and may have been the first hominid to do so and by 300,000–200,000 years ago, there is no doubt that fire was being used.

“Over the last decade or so, a group of scholars has tried to exclude Neanderthals from the general post-400,000-year-ago pattern, arguing that Neanderthals used fire but were unable to make it,” Zilhão explains. “Contrary to their stance, we show that, where the Iberian sites are concerned, there can be no doubt that Neanderthals had full control of fire-making and fire-using technology.”

Neanderthals were lighting the fire not only in Gruta da Oliveira but also at Cueva Antón and La Boja, also in Spain, he argues.

The debate continues over how closely Neanderthals resembled us, Homo sapiens, in terms of cognition and behaviour. This is exciting because we now know they contributed to our genomes through intermixing that may have begun as much as 250,000 years ago.

(With inputs from agencies)

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