A new study has found evidence that early human ancestors carried fire into Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa as early as 1.79 million years ago. Researchers identified burned bones deep inside the cave using a new detection method.
Scientists uncovered repeated signs of burning in fossilized animal bones from layers dating between 1.07 and 1.79 million years ago. The bones were located about 30 meters inside the cave, well beyond the reach of natural wildfires, indicating that hominins deliberately brought fire inside and maintained it.
The research was led by Dr. Liora Kolska Horwitz of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in collaboration with an international team. It builds on a 2012 study that had dated fire use at the site to about one million years ago. The new findings, published in PLOS ONE, link the evidence to early Acheulean artifacts likely associated with Homo erectus.
Researchers said the early humans probably collected fire from natural sources such as wildfires rather than creating it themselves. They used a non-destructive luminescence technique combined with chemical analysis to confirm the burned bones with high confidence.
"These discoveries show that early humans were not simply passive observers of natural fires," Dr. Kolska Horwitz said. "They were actively engaging with fire and incorporating it into their lives."