In a discovery that’s lighting up the scientific world, archaeologists have unearthed what is now considered the oldest known evidence of deliberate fire-making by early humans. The remarkable find, published in Nature on December 11, 2025, pushes the timeline for controlled pyrotechnology back to around 400,000 years ago, fundamentally reshaping our understanding of human evolution and ingenuity.
The evidence comes from the Barnham archaeological site, also known as East Farm, in the United Kingdom—about 70 miles northeast of London. Here, researchers uncovered a combination of heat-distorted flint handaxes, reddened silt, and, most notably, two fragments of iron pyrite. This mineral, commonly referred to as "fool’s gold," is known for its ability to generate sparks when struck against flint, making it an ideal fire-starting material.
According to the Nature study, the pyrite fragments were found embedded in heated sediments, which also contained fire-cracked handaxes. The sediments themselves bore the unmistakable hallmarks of repeated burning, including chemical traces such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that typically form when wood is burned. Infrared spectroscopy revealed that some areas had been heated to temperatures exceeding 1300 degrees Fahrenheit—a clear sign of high-intensity, sustained fire use.
"In over 36 years of field work and geological studies in the area, we’ve never found pyrite before," British Museum archaeologist Nick Ashton, the study’s senior author, told National Geographic. "And now, the only time we find it is alongside heat-shattered handaxes and baked sediments." This, he argues, is no coincidence. The local geology contains no pyrite-bearing outcrops, and the mineral typically forms hundreds of yards below the surface—far deeper than the few feet where the fragments were discovered. Study co-author Andrew Sorensen of Leiden University adds, "No pyrite-bearing outcrops or geological deposits are known in this region, [which] suggests they were brought in by hominins."
The implications of this find are profound. Until now, the earliest solid evidence of fire-making came from Neanderthal sites in France, dating to about 50,000 years ago. The Barnham discovery, however, predates that by more than 350,000 years and suggests that either early Neanderthals or possibly Homo heidelbergensis—a likely ancestor of both Neanderthals and modern humans—had mastered the art of creating fire on demand. This would mean that the ability to make fire was not simply borrowed from later Homo sapiens, but independently developed by our evolutionary cousins.
The site itself, East Farm, may have served as a seasonal camp for these early hominins, who would have lived in a Britain still connected to continental Europe by the Doggerland land bridge. Archaeologists have long debated whether early humans in this region merely harvested fire from wild sources, such as lightning strikes, or whether they could start their own blazes at will. The Barnham evidence, with its unique combination of pyrite and flint tools, tips the scales toward the latter.
Fire, of course, isn’t just about warmth. As the research team led by Rob Davis of the British Museum explained during an online news conference, the controlled use of fire was a “turning point” in human history, affecting everything from biological evolution to social development. "The ability to make fire would have had an impact on evolutionary trends, in particular on biological evolution, but also on social evolution and social developments," Davis said. Fire provided protection from predators, enabled our ancestors to inhabit colder regions, and fundamentally changed their diets by allowing them to cook food. Cooking, in turn, made nutrients more accessible and may have contributed to the dramatic increase in brain size that distinguishes humans from other primates.
But the benefits didn’t stop there. Fire transformed social life by creating illuminated communal spaces—think of early humans gathering around the hearth, sharing food, stories, and knowledge. This social dynamic likely fostered cooperation and cultural transmission, laying the groundwork for the complex societies that would follow. Ségolène Vandevelde, an archaeologist not involved in the study, noted in her Nature analysis, "The strength of this research is really the effective combination of different types of expertise and complementary methods." She added, "If the ability to light fires is so ancient, we can assume that the mastery of fire and its habitual use dates back even further."
Still, not everyone is ready to rewrite the textbooks just yet. Wil Roebroeks, a Leiden University archaeologist and expert on prehistoric fire use, praised the thoroughness of the analysis but remains cautious. "The authors did an excellent job with their analysis of the Barnham data, but they seem to be stretching the evidence," he told National Geographic. Dennis Sandgathe of Simon Fraser University, who studies Neanderthal fire use, found the new paper "quite compelling" but warned that even if the evidence holds up, fire-making would have been "an exceedingly rare thing" at the time.
The technical sophistication implied by the Barnham find is striking. Fire-making with pyrite and flint is no simple feat; it requires not just the right materials, but also knowledge and skill—selecting, transporting, and using minerals in a precise way to create and sustain fire. That these early hominins were able to do so suggests a level of cognitive complexity and social learning previously thought to be the exclusive domain of modern humans.
Moreover, this discovery has implications for how archaeologists interpret fire-related residues and artifacts at other Middle Pleistocene sites. The use of fire-making minerals as cultural proxies may become an important criterion for identifying advanced pyrotechnology elsewhere. Future research will likely focus on uncovering additional mineralogical signatures, wear traces, or spatial patterns indicative of early fire-making practices.
Ecologically, the controlled use of fire by hominins would have transformed landscapes, creating mosaic habitats and increasing biodiversity. Such anthropogenic burning could have changed selective pressures not only on humans but also on their prey, reinforcing the idea that fire was both a technological and ecological game-changer.
In the end, the 400,000-year-old evidence of deliberate fire-making from Barnham represents a watershed moment in paleoanthropology. It confirms that early hominins possessed the technical prowess and cognitive sophistication to generate fire on demand—transforming not just their immediate environment, but the entire trajectory of human evolution. As research continues, fire-making will remain at the heart of the story of what makes us human.
