> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# It seems that, for the tenth time this month, I shall have to propose rewriting the textbooks on prehistory
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/pokhozhe-mne-uzhe-v-desiatyi-raz-za-mesiats-pridetsia-predlagat-perepisat-uchebniki-po-pervobytnoi-istorii/
- Published: 2026-06-08T06:24:32.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:25:53.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Archaeology, Observations, Science

This time the culprit is a high-profile study by an international team of scientists, which pushes back the timeline of the mastery of fire by hundreds of thousands of years!

In the famous Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa, where traces of fires some 1 million years old had previously been found in the upper layer, archaeologists went deeper and discovered charred bones of small mammals. To confirm with 100% certainty that this was indeed the effect of heat, they applied the method of bone luminescence. Under ultraviolet light, viewed through a special filter, the burnt bones began to glow a bright, saturated red, while the unburnt ones remained dark purple.

The possibility of a natural fire is ruled out, since the bones were dug up 30 metres inside the cave from its entrance. No forest or steppe fire could physically have carried flames or burning embers so far. The fire was brought there deliberately.

Two independent methods of dating the cave sediment gave an age of between 1.07 and 1.79 million years. If the upper limit is confirmed, this is officially the earliest evidence of the use of fire in history.

Archaeologists urge against hasty conclusions. The find does not prove that Homo erectus already knew how to make fire on their own, or regularly grilled a mammoth steak. Most likely, they “caught” natural fires, took the smouldering embers, carried them deep into the cave and kept the hearth going in cycles, to keep warm and to ward off predators. But the very fact that this practice may have recurred systematically almost 1.8 million years ago radically changes our picture of the intelligence and social behaviour of early hominids