Early Human Fire Usage

The history of human use of fire is an old one, as you might imagine. The earliest evidence for using fire is by Homo erectus, at least 400,000 years old, and perhaps as long ago as 790,000 years ago.

Camp fire
Photo Credit: JaseMan

Building a fire with stones? Well, that's Early Modern Human and Neanderthals in the Middle Paleolithic, between 200,000 and 40,000 years ago.

And finally, constructing an earth oven? That's something only an Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens would do.

For nitty gritty details about humans and early fire usage, pick a link and read on, MacDuff.

• When was Fire First Controlled?
• Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (Israel)
• Zhoukoudian (China)
• Klasies River Caves (South Africa)
• Klisoura Cave (Greece)