🔥 Ready for a blast from the past? This month, a team led by researchers from the British Museum revealed a 400,000-year-old fireplace near Barnham, Suffolk – the earliest solid proof that humans in the UK were making fire.
Mastering fire was a game-changer: it offered warmth during ice-age chills, lit up social gatherings, and let our ancestors cook meat and veggies 🍖🔥. This leap in technology may have paved the way for our large brains 🧠.
While signs of ancient fires more than a million years ago pop up in Africa, those were likely sparks from lightning. Finding clear evidence of deliberate fire-making is super rare because early tools and hearths often vanish over time.
Before this find, the oldest evidence of humans crafting fire came from France and was "only" 50,000 years old – so this discovery pushes the timeline back by hundreds of thousands of years.
For students and researchers, this opens fresh questions: How did they start the flames? What tools did they use? Archaeologists are now examining charred flints and sediments to crack the mystery. 🔍
Travelers and history buffs might soon find new museum exhibits and trails around Suffolk highlighting these ancient sparks. Whether you're a science nerd or a culture explorer, this fiery breakthrough shows how our ancestors lit the way to modern humanity.
Reference(s):
cgtn.com
