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On the Earliest Evidence for Habitual Use of Fire in Europe On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe Wil Roebroeksa,1 and Paola Villab,c,d,1 aFaculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands; bUniversity of Colorado Museum, Boulder, CO 80309-0265; cUnité Mixte de Recherche 5199, de la Préhistoire á l’Actuel: Culture, Environnement, et Anthropologie, Institut de Préhistoire et Géologie du Quaternaire, 33405 Talence, France; and dSchool of Geography, Archaeology, and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Wits 2050 Johannesburg, South Africa Edited* by Erik Trinkaus, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, and approved February 8, 2011 (received for review December 4, 2010) The timing of the human control of fire is a hotly debated issue, Results with claims for regular fire use by early hominins in Africa at ∼1.6 Interpreting the Record. For most of prehistory until ∼10,000 y ago, million y ago. These claims are not uncontested, but most archae- hominins all over the world subsisted as hunters and gatherers, ologists would agree that the colonization of areas outside Africa, with a generally highly mobile lifestyle. Until the later phases of especially of regions such as Europe where temperatures at time the Paleolithic, these mobile foragers invested very little in camp dropped below freezing, was indeed tied to the use of fire. Our layout, in dwelling structures, or in the construction of formal review of the European evidence suggests that early hominins hearths (14). The overwhelming majority of their traces consist of moved into northern latitudes without the habitual use of fire. It stone tools, the debris of stone tool production, and often but was only much later, from ∼300,000 to 400,000 y ago onward, that not always food remains. With few exceptions (see below), pre- fire became a significant part of the hominin technological reper- served fireplaces are simple clusters of burnt materials occurring toire. It is also from the second half of the Middle Pleistocene as flat lenses or in small hollows. The most common proxies for onward that we can observe spectacular cases of Neandertal pyro- fire use consist of various find categories that display traces of technological knowledge in the production of hafting materials. having been submitted to heating: the reddened sediments on The increase in the number of sites with good evidence of fire which a fire was built, heated stone artifacts, charred bone frag- throughout the Late Pleistocene shows that European Neandertals ments, and pieces of charcoal. The problem is that other pro- had fire management not unlike that documented for Upper cesses than human activities can create such findings too. Vol- ANTHROPOLOGY Paleolithic groups. canic eruptions can be an important factor in driving the natural fire regime in volcanically active areas. Lightning strikes—with an human evolution | Paleolithic archeology | fireplaces | hafting adhesives average global flash rate of an estimated 44 ± 5 flashes per second (15)—or spontaneous combustion cause natural fires that can he emergence of stone tool manufacture and the control of burn archeological camp sites. The remains of such grass and Tfire are undoubtedly the two most significant events in the forest fires can become associated with archeological find mate- technological evolution of early humans. Although stone tool use rials. Hence, charcoal, charred bone material, and heated flints fi and manufacture were regular activities from at least 2.6 million do not necessarily indicate anthropogenic res (2). At open-air fi y ago (1), the timing of the human control of fire is a contro- sites, direct evidence for human res, such as charcoal, can be fi easily removed by natural processes, including erosion by water versial issue (2), with some claims for regular re use by early fi hominins in Africa at ∼1.6 million y ago (3–5). Longer chro- or by wind (16). Thus, the context of possible re indicators is important. If burnt bones, heated artifacts, and charcoal occur in nologies for the use of fire include Wrangham’s recent hypothesis fi caves or enclosed sites where the deposits are demonstrably in that re was a central evolutionary force toward larger human fl – situ and are not reworked by slope wash or debris ow entering brains (6 9): eating cooked foods made early hominin digestion the cave, then they can be considered good indicators of an- easier, and the energy formerly spent on digestion was freed up, thropogenic fires. Much of the debate on the history of human fi enabling their energy-expensive brains to grow. Using re to control of fire relates to the problem of the correct interpretation prepare food made early humans move away from the former of possible fire indicators, especially in the absence of modern feed-as-you-go-and-eat-raw-food strategy and toward the sharing excavation techniques and detailed studies of site formation pro- of cooked foods around fires, which became attractive locations cesses. In this last domain, significant progress has been made by for increased social interaction between individuals. Wrangham the application of micromorphological techniques to the study of situates these developments around the time of the emergence combustion features in rock shelters and caves (17–20). of Homo erectus, approximately two million y ago. Most arche- ologists would agree that the colonization of areas outside of European Record. The earliest traces of hominin presence in Africa, especially of regions such as Europe where temperatures Europe come from its southern parts and date to more than one at time dropped below freezing (10), was tied to the use of fire million y ago (21). Recent data from the English site Happisburgh to bridge gaps in the energy budget and in resource availability 3 suggest that hominins may already have been adapted to the during winter (11). For much later periods, a greater control and challenging environments of the boreal zone in the Early Pleis- tocene, more than 800,000 y (800 ka) ago (10). Fire would have more extensive use of fire is seen by some (12, 13) as one of the behavioral innovations that emerged in Africa among modern humans, favoring their spread throughout the world and their Author contributions: W.R. and P.V. designed research; performed research; analyzed eventual evolutionary success. data; and wrote the paper. How strong are these hypotheses? To what extent are they The authors declare no conflict of interest. backed up by archeological data on hominin use of fire? Our *This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor. focus in this review is on Europe, an area of the Old World for Freely available online through the PNAS open access option. which we have a rich record with a large number of sampling 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] or points distributed in time and space, with sites in a wide range of [email protected]. sedimentary contexts, from open-air sites to the closed settings of This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10. rock shelters and caves. 1073/pnas.1018116108/-/DCSupplemental. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1018116108 PNAS | March 29, 2011 | vol. 108 | no. 13 | 5209–5214 Downloaded by guest on September 25, 2021 been an important tool in such environments. However, surpris- strong pattern, which can be tested by future work at other ingly, evidence for use of fire in the Early and early Middle hominin habitation sites. We suggest that the European record Pleistocene of Europe is extremely weak. Or, more exactly, it is displays a strong signal, in the sense that, from ∼400 to 300 ka ago, nonexistent, until ∼300–400 ka. Our review of the early European many proxies indicate a habitual use of fire, but from the pre- sites (Dataset S1) shows that the earliest possible evidence of fire ceding 700 ka of hominin presence in Europe, we have no evi- comes from two sites dated to ∼400 ka, Beeches Pit in England dence for fire use. and Schöningen in Germany. At Schöningen, the evidence con- From around MIS 9, we find extensive traces of the presence sists of some heated flints (although mostly natural pieces) (22) of fire in cave settings as well as in the open (Dataset S1). The and charred wood, including a wooden tool, with the studies of evidence from the multilevel site of La Cotte de Saint Brelade possible remains of former hearths still in progress (23). At (Jersey, UK), for instance, shows that fire was extensively used Beeches Pit, dated to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 (Dataset throughout the MIS 7–MIS 4 occupation periods. There are in- S1), the evidence consists of heated lithics and heated sediments dications of burning in every occupation layer here, with high (24, 25), interpreted as the remains of hearths. Terra Amata densities of burnt material and a predominance of burnt bone (France) and Vérteszöllös (Hungary) also provide credible evi- over wood charcoal. Apparently, in addition to wood, bone was dence of fire, but estimates of their age vary from MIS 11 to 9. used as fuel as well (41). Spatial concentrations of heated flint Of direct relevance are sites that do not have traces of fire artifacts and/or heated stones and charred faunal remains are – before MIS 9 11. It could be argued that early open-air sites, a common phenomenon on Middle Paleolithic open-air sites all such as those in the Orce region in Spain (26) or Isernia (27) and over Europe (Dataset S1). Venosa Notarchirico in Italy (28), have been affected by water It is also from the second half of the Middle Pleistocene fi transport, which removed traces of former res.
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