Control of Fire by Early Humans: From Wonderwerk to the Hearth

The control of fire was one of the most important steps in human evolution, giving early humans warmth, light, protection and cooked food. The earliest widely accepted evidence comes from Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa, where hominins burned bone and plants about 1 million years ago. Fire use became regular and widespread only much later, after about 400,000 years ago, and exactly when our ancestors first tamed it is still one of archaeology’s great debates.

Using, controlling and making fire

Scientists distinguish between several stages. The first is opportunistic use: taking advantage of natural fires started by lightning or volcanic activity, for example by picking up burning branches or searching burned ground for food. Many animals, including some birds of prey and chimpanzees, react to wildfires in ways that suggest this kind of use is ancient.

The next stage is control: keeping a fire going, carrying embers and feeding a hearth over time. The last is making fire at will, by friction between pieces of wood or by striking sparks from stone. Each step requires more knowledge and planning, and each leaves different, often faint, traces in the archaeological record.

How archaeologists detect ancient fire

Fire leaves clues that can survive for hundreds of thousands of years, but they are easy to misread. Burned bone changes colour and chemistry. Flint heated in a fire may crack, change colour or show tiny pot-lid fractures. Wood ash and charcoal can survive in caves, and heated sediment can retain a magnetic signal or chemical changes.

The difficulty is telling human fires from natural ones. Wildfires can burn bones lying on the surface, and smouldering tree stumps can redden soil. Researchers therefore look for burned material concentrated in one spot, found together with stone tools, inside caves where natural fires are unlikely, or repeated in the same places over time. Modern techniques such as micromorphology, the study of thin slices of sediment under a microscope, have made these judgments much more reliable.

Early traces in Africa

The oldest proposed evidence comes from East Africa. At Koobi Fora in Kenya, a site known as FxJj 20, dated to about 1.5 million years ago, has patches of reddened sediment and burned stone tools. At Chesowanja, also in Kenya, archaeologists in the early 1980s reported lumps of burned clay about 1.4 million years old. Both were made by hominins of the time, most likely Homo erectus, but natural fires cannot be fully ruled out.

In South Africa, the cave of Swartkrans has produced hundreds of burned bone fragments in a layer dated to roughly 1 to 1.5 million years ago. Experiments by the palaeontologist Bob Brain and the archaeological scientist Andrew Sillen, published in 1988, showed that some had been heated to temperatures typical of campfires. Because Swartkrans was partly open to the surface, however, the burning might have happened outside and been washed in.

Wonderwerk Cave: fire a million years ago

Wonderwerk Cave lies in the Northern Cape province of South Africa, a huge tunnel-like cave running about 140 metres into a hillside. Its sediments, excavated since the 1940s, contain a long sequence of human occupation, including layers with Acheulean hand axes.

In 2012 a team led by Francesco Berna and Michael Chazan published a study of a layer about 30 metres from the entrance, dated to around 1 million years ago. Under the microscope they found tiny fragments of burned bone and ash from burned grasses, leaves and twigs. The ash was fragile and had not been moved by water or wind, so the fires must have burned inside the cave where the material lay.

Because natural fires could not easily start so deep inside a cave, the researchers concluded that hominins had brought fire in or kept it there. Wonderwerk is now widely regarded as the earliest secure evidence for hominin use of fire, although it does not show how often fire was used or whether the hominins could make it.

Gesher Benot Ya’aqov: fire by the Jordan

Gesher Benot Ya’aqov is an open-air site on the banks of the Jordan River in northern Israel, near the old crossing known as Jacob’s Daughters’ Bridge. Waterlogged sediments there have preserved wood, seeds and fruit from around 790,000 years ago, together with Acheulean tools.

In 2004 a team led by the archaeologist Naama Goren-Inbar reported burned seeds, wood and small flakes of flint. Later studies showed that the burned flint was clustered in particular spots, which the researchers interpreted as the remains of hearths reused over many occupations. A 2022 study of fish teeth from the site suggested that fish had been cooked at relatively low temperatures rather than burned in a wildfire.

If correct, Gesher Benot Ya’aqov shows hominins not only using fire but returning to the same hearths and cooking food. It is also an important stepping stone between Africa and Eurasia, at a time when humans were spreading into colder regions.

From occasional fire to the hearth

Despite these early cases, fire is rare in the archaeological record before about 400,000 years ago. In a 2011 review, the archaeologists Wil Roebroeks and Paola Villa found little evidence for regular fire use in Europe before that date, even at sites occupied by people in cold climates. They concluded that habitual fire use, with hearths a normal part of daily life, began around 400,000 to 300,000 years ago.

After that, evidence multiplies. Qesem Cave in Israel, from around 300,000 years ago, has a large central hearth used repeatedly. Beeches Pit and Barnham in Suffolk, England, have burned material from about 400,000 years ago. A study of Barnham published in 2025 reported fragments of pyrite, a mineral that produces sparks when struck with flint, along with heated sediment, and argued that people there were making fire rather than only collecting it.

Neanderthals used fire regularly in many sites across Europe and western Asia. Microscopic wear on some of their flint tools, around 50,000 years old, matches the marks left by striking pyrite to make sparks. Early modern humans in Africa used fire for cooking, for heating stone to make it easier to flake, and to produce red pigment from ochre.

The cave of Zhoukoudian near Beijing, home of Peking Man, was once seen as the classic early fire site, with thick layers described as ash. A 1998 study by Steve Weiner and colleagues found burned bones but showed that the “ash” was mostly natural sediment, and no true hearths could be identified.

Effects on diet, body and society

Fire changed what humans could eat. Cooking softens food, breaks down tough fibres and starches, kills parasites and bacteria, and releases more energy than the same food eaten raw. It also made it possible to eat plants that are inedible or toxic when raw.

The anthropologist Richard Wrangham of Harvard University has argued, notably in his 2009 book Catching Fire, that cooking began with Homo erectus around 1.8 million years ago. In his view, cooked food explains why that species had smaller teeth and jaws, a smaller gut and a larger brain than its ancestors. Critics point out that the archaeological evidence for fire at that time is thin, and some suggest that other food processing, such as pounding and cutting meat, could explain the same changes.

Fire also had social effects. It extended the day into the evening, offered protection from predators and made it possible to live in colder climates and darker caves. Studies of modern hunter-gatherers, such as the anthropologist Polly Wiessner’s work among the Ju/‘hoansi of southern Africa, show that conversation by firelight is often devoted to stories and social matters rather than practical business. Some researchers suggest that ancient fires played a similar role in building shared culture.

Myths and facts

Myth: early humans discovered how to make fire in a single moment. Fire use developed gradually over hundreds of thousands of years, from opportunistic use to control and finally to making fire at will.

Myth: Peking Man’s cave proves fire use 500,000 years ago. The Zhoukoudian evidence has been reinterpreted, and the site no longer shows clear hearths.

Fact: some early human groups may have lived without fire. The rarity of fire in many sites before 400,000 years ago suggests that it was not yet a universal part of life, even in cold regions.

Timeline

• c. 1.5 million years ago: Possible burned sediments and tools at Koobi Fora, Kenya (debated).
• c. 1.4 million years ago: Burned clay at Chesowanja, Kenya (debated).
• c. 1 million years ago: Burned bone and plant ash in place at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa.
• c. 790,000 years ago: Burned seeds, wood and flint at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel.
• c. 400,000 years ago: Evidence of fire, and probably fire-making, at Barnham and Beeches Pit, England.
• c. 300,000 years ago: Repeatedly used central hearth at Qesem Cave, Israel.
• c. 50,000 years ago: Neanderthal flint tools show signs of striking pyrite to make sparks.
• 2012: Berna, Chazan and colleagues publish the Wonderwerk evidence.

Why it matters

Fire gave humans a source of energy outside their own bodies. It allowed them to cook, keep warm, see at night and settle in new environments, and it may have helped shape our bodies, brains and social lives. The slow path from using wildfires to building hearths is one of the key stories of human prehistory.