Fragments of iron pyrite, a rock that can be used with flint to make sparks, were found by a 400,000-year-old hearth in eastern Britain. (Jordan Mansfield | Courtesy Pathways to Ancient Britain ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Set aside your matches or lighter and try to start a fire—chances are you’d be left cold and hungry. But as early as 400,000 years ...

Archaeologists working in eastern England say they have uncovered the earliest known evidence of humans deliberately making fire, pushing the origin of this technology back to roughly 400,000 years ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. Excavation of 400,000 year old pond sediments at Barnham, Suffolk. (CREDIT: Jordan Mansfield) A research team at the British ...

Neanderthals 400,000 years ago were striking flints to make fires, researchers have found. Neanderthals 400,000 years ago were striking flints to make fires, researchers have found. An artist’s ...

At a site called East Farm in England, recent excavations revealed reddened silt, flint handaxes distorted by heat, and fragments of a mineral—iron pyrite—that could have been used to make sparks on ...

Four hundred thousand years ago, someone took up a piece of pyrite, struck it against a stone, and started a fire. Archaeologists working on a site in Suffolk have found the pyrite and the scalded ...

It's easy to take for granted that with the flick of a lighter or the turn of a furnace knob, modern humans can conjure flames — cooking food, lighting candles or warming homes. For much of our ...

A research team at the British Museum, led by Nick Ashton and Rob Davis, reports evidence that ancient humans could make and manage fire about 400,000 years ago. The findings, published in Nature, ...