Site Yields Early Evidence of Fire
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP

WASHINGTON (April 30) - More than three-quarters of a million years ago, early
humans gathered around a campfire near an ancient lake in what is now Israel,
making tools and perhaps cooking food, in the earliest evidence yet found of
the use of fire in Europe or Asia.

Researchers have found evidence that these early people hunted and processed
meat and used fire at a site called Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in the northern Dead
Sea valley.

Developing the ability to use fire ''surely led to dramatic changes in their
behavior connected with diet, defense and social interaction,'' said lead
researcher Naama Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Occupation of the site has been dated at about 790,000 years ago, according to
the research team. Their findings are reported in Friday's issue of the journal
Science.

The remains of burned wood indicate the possibility of a hearth, the
researchers said, and there were tiny flint pieces, probably chipped off in the
process of making tools.

There also is evidence of consumption of meat, including bones with cut marks
and breakage patterns indicating the extraction of marrow.

The evidence indicates the early humans ate a variety of animals including
horses, deer, rhino, hippo and birds, Goren-Inbar said in an interview via
e-mail.

Several types of wood were burned at the site, including willow, poplar, ash
and wild olive. There also was evidence of oats, wild grapevine, bedstraw,
barley and several types of grass.

The find ''enlarges the scope of our understanding of the behavioral patterns
of the early humans,'' Goren-Inbar said. ''It allows us to understand that
these hominins were capable of coping with dangers, food, acquire warmth and
later on in the history of mankind enabled some very meaningful technological
inventions.''

The earliest previous sites in Europe and Asia that show evidence of human use
of fire have been dated at about 500,000 years ago.

Thus, the new finding pushes back the earliest evidence for control of fire by
residents of Asia or Europe by more than a quarter-million years.

There are earlier sites associating fire with early humans in Africa, though
some researchers believe the evidence at those locations is ambiguous and
natural fires cannot be ruled out.

Anthropologist Paola Villa of the University of Colorado, who was not part of
the research team, called new the report an important find.

''The evidence presented in this paper is very convincing because it is based
on a combination of different kinds of data,'' she said. ''Supportive evidence
for the presence of fireplaces is also provided. The authors have considered
all possible alternative explanations,'' she said.

''This is an important find that will encourage European archaeologists to take
a closer look at their data,'' Villa added.

The Israeli site is at a crossroads for movement between Africa, Asia and
Europe and use of fire could have helped spur the colonization of the colder
climate of Europe, which began about 800,000 years ago.

Still unknown is exactly who these early people were. The paper notes that
residents of this site have been assumed to be the now extinct Homo erectus or
Homo ergaster, but may also have been an archaic version of modern humans, Homo
sapiens.


04-29-04 1552EDT

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
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