The oldest fire

2004/07/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Giza zientziak

In an Israeli site, the oldest fire of a man's ancestor, 790,000 years ago, has been discovered. The fire is undoubtedly controlled, and to be sure, more than 23 million seeds and more than 50 million nuts and parts of the wood have been analyzed; only 2% of the materials are burned and concentrated in a certain area.

Until now it was thought that the hominids had domesticated the fire 400 or 500 thousand years ago and the oldest trace was 250 thousand years ago, found in a Chinese cave. This discovery has shown that man or one of his ancestors began to gather in the calm of fire long before dusk.

Fire control served this hominid to protect itself from animals, cook and warm in winter. But they still do not know for sure what it was: Homo erectus, Homo ergaster or Homo sapiens.