Ice Age Humans Were Skilled Firebenders, Scientists Find
Hominids have been using fire for at least a million years — but scientists have found that human fire-wielding skills during our planet's last great Ice Age became so advanced that they would have made Bobby Flay proud.
A group of archaeologists from across Europe has found, per a new study in the journal Geoarchaeology, that tens of thousands of years ago, Homo sapiens — better known as modern humans — figured out how to make fires that burned up to 600 degrees Celsius, or more than 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Led by researchers from Austria's University of Vienna and Portugal's University of Algarve, the scientists identified three hearths in modern-day Ukraine from the coldest portion of the last Ice Age, between 26,500 and 19,000 years ago.
As a press release from the University of Vienna explains, the researchers were surprised to find that the simple fireplaces didn't just burn wood, but also had remnants of bone and animals fats in them — both of which could have helped them burn hotter and brighter.
While it's unclear whether the addition of animal remains was intentional or occurred when the hunter-gatherers who used those hearths were cooking, it's still a fascinating find — especially because there's a striking lack of evidence of human fire mastery from that time period.
"We know that fire was widespread before and after this period, but there is little evidence from the height of the Ice Age," explained William Murphree, a geoarchaeologist at the University of Algarve who was the lead author on the paper.
The three fireplaces were all, as the press release notes, open and flat — but one was larger and thicker, suggesting that it may have been used to achieve higher temperatures. According to University of Vienna researcher and co-lead author Philip Nigst, the differences in size and thickness denote a surprising sophistication.
"People perfectly controlled the fire and knew how to use it in different ways, depending on the purpose of the fire," Nigst said in the university statement. "But our results also show that these hunter-gatherers used the same place at different times of the year during their annual migrations."
While the findings from these three Ice Age hearths are indeed fascinating, they also pose more questions.
"Did people not find enough fuel during the [Ice Age]?" Nigst pondered. "Did they not use fire, but instead relied on other technological solutions?"
And perhaps most importantly: what happened to the other fireplaces in that era? Were they, as Murphree posited, destroyed by the ravages of the Ice Age, or did something else happen to them?
For now, it's all conjecture — but knowing our ancestors were apparently grilling down during the Ice Age? Heck, relatable.
More on ancient humans: The Biggest Technological Development in Human History Happened All Across the World Around the Same Time, by Groups of People With Zero Contact With One Another
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