Evidence of Early Campfires Found in Europe

MURCIA, SPAIN—Science News reports that paleontologist Michael Walker of the University of Murcia and his colleagues have found evidence for the earliest controlled use of small fires in Europe at Cueva Negra del Estrecho del Río Quípar. The cave, located in southeastern Spain, has yielded more than 165 stones and stone artifacts and 2,300 heated or charred animal-bone fragments. Microscopic and chemical analysis of these objects indicates that they were heated to between 750 and 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures consistent with having been burned in fire. Walker thinks the fires were started by human ancestors some 800,000 years ago, based upon the identification of a reversal in the Earth’s magnetic field some 780,000 years ago in sediments above the burned artifacts. Fossils of extinct animals have also been found with the stone tools. Some scientists question the early date and think the tools are at most 600,000 years old. That would still make the fires the earliest known in Europe.