On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe

Roebroeks, Wil; Villa, Paola

doi:10.1073/pnas.1018116108

Cited by 687Pleistocene-Era Hominins and ArchaeologyArchaeology and ancient environmental studiesArchaeological and Geological Studies

On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe

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Roebroeks, Wil, Villa, Paola·2011·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI 10.1073/pnas.1018116108PMC PMC3069174

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Abstract

The timing of the human control of fire is a hotly debated issue, with claims for regular fire use by early hominins in Africa at ∼1.6 million y ago. These claims are not uncontested, but most archaeologists would agree that the colonization of areas outside Africa, especially of regions such as Europe where temperatures at time dropped below freezing, was indeed tied to the use of fire. Our review of the European evidence suggests that early hominins moved into northern latitudes without the habitual use of fire. It was only much later, from ∼300,000 to 400,000 y ago onward, that fire became a significant part of the hominin technological repertoire. It is also from the second half of the Middle Pleistocene onward that we can observe spectacular cases of Neandertal pyrotechnological knowledge in the production of hafting materials. The increase in the number of sites with good evidence of fire throughout the Late Pleistocene shows that European Neandertals had fire management not unlike that documented for Upper Paleolithic groups.

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Archaeological deposits provide reliable evidence for routine controlled use of fire by the Middle Pleistocene, 690-790 ka.
“although archaeological deposits provide reliable evidence for routine controlled use of fire by the Middle Pleistocene, 690–790 ka (Goren-Inbar et al., 2004; Roebroeks & Villa, 2011).”
From The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth (2011) · cites this paper as Roebroeks & Villa, 2011

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Middle Pleistocene fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution
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Culture: The Driving Force of Human Cognition
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“Berna et al. (2012) point out that without a clear combustion feature, it is difficult to demonstrate hominin control of fire (Roebroeks and Villa 2011).”
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Morphology, body proportions, and postcranial hypertrophy of a female Neandertal from the Sima de las Palomas, southeastern Spain
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What happens around a fire: Faunal processing sequences and spatial distribution at Qesem Cave (300 ka), Israel
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“…the reduction in mastication since most researchers date the habitual and controlled use of fire to over a million years after the appearance of H. erectus (Barkai et al., 2017; Gowlett, 2016; Roebroeks & Villa, 2011; Shahack-Gross et al., 2014; Shimelmitz et al., 2014); but see R. Wrangham (2017).”
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“Archaeological evidence suggests that early hominins moved into northern latitudes from Africa without the habitual use of fire, and that it was only after ∼300,000 to 400,000 years ago that fire became a significant part of the hominin technological repertoire (Karkanas, 2007; Roebroeks and Villa, 2011).”
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Neandertal fire-making technology inferred from microwear analysis
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Trajectories of cultural innovation from the Middle to Later Stone Age in Eastern Africa: Personal ornaments, bone artifacts, and ocher from Panga ya Saidi, Kenya
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“Most conifer trees have several parts that are edible, including the needles, nuts and C© Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 charcoal remains from hearths, and there is extensive evidence for this across a broad area (e.g. Roebroeks & Villa 2011; Albert et al. 2012; Aldeias et al. 2012).”
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The Early and early Middle Pleistocene context of human occupation and lowland glaciation in Britain and northern Europe
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“Despite recent evidence that hominin use of fire stretches back more than 1 million years (Berna et al., 2012) and that fire became a regular technology for many (if not all) hominin populations between 400 and 300 ka (Roebroeks & Villa, 2011) the polemic continues.”
Background
Neanderthal activity and resting areas from stratigraphic unit 13 at the Middle Palaeolithic site of Oscurusciuto (Ginosa - Taranto, Southern Italy)
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Human Life History Evolution Explains Dissociation between the Timing of Tooth Eruption and Peak Rates of Root Growth
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Perspective on the human cough reflex
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The Emergence of Habitual Ochre Use in Africa and its Significance for The Development of Ritual Behavior During The Middle Stone Age
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“The term habitual often appears in the archaeological literature, for example, in association with the evolution of fire use by hominins (Roebroeks & Villa, 2011; Sandgathe, 2017; Shahack-Gross et al., 2014; Shimelmitz et al., 2014).”
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Walking in a Winter Wonderland? Strategies for Early and Middle Pleistocene Survival in Midlatitude Europe
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“…were able to buffer those adverse effects somewhat more successfully than their predecessors (as reflected in the richer lithic records and in behavioral innovations such as fire and shelter; e.g., Mania and Mania 2005; Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten 1995; Roebroeks and Villa 2011; Wymer 1999).”
BackgroundInfluential
Zoon Politikon
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Authors: Roebroeks, W., & Villa, P.
Affiliations: Leiden University (NL)
University of the Witwatersrand (ZA)
ORCID: Roebroeks, Wil
Villa, Paola
Venue: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: National Academy of Sciences
Published: 2011-03-14
Volume: 108
Issue: 13
Pages: 5209-5214
ISSN: 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
1091-6490
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1018116108
PMC: PMC3069174
OpenAlex: W2165291892
Cited by: 687
References: 80
Citations by year: 2026: 19 · 2025: 34 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 62 · 2021: 56 · 2020: 67 · 2019: 49 · 2018: 76 · 2017: 52 · 2016: 59 · 2015: 40 · 2014: 28 · 2013: 31 · 2012: 24
FWCI: 144.72
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: green
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Locations: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics: Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Archaeological and Geological Studies
Keywords: fire use, Neanderthals, Middle Pleistocene, Late Pleistocene, fire management, hafting, Upper Palaeolithic, northern latitudes, European prehistory
MeSH terms: Animals, Emigration and Immigration, Europe, Biological Evolution, Fires, Fossils, Humans, Technology, Hominidae

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On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe

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