Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa

Francesco Berna; Paul Goldberg; Liora Kolska Horwitz; James Brink; Sharon Holt; Marion Bamford; Michael Chazan

doi:10.1073/pnas.1117620109

Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa

Francesco Berna, Paul Goldberg, Liora Kolska Horwitz, James Brink, Sharon Holt, Marion Bamford, Michael Chazan

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

412 Scopus citations

Abstract

The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence - in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains - that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	E1215-E1220
Journal	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume	109
Issue number	20
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1117620109
State	Published - 15 May 2012
Externally published	Yes

Funding

Funders	Funder number
National Science Foundation	0917739

Keywords

Cooking hypothesis
Homo erectus
Micromorphology

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10.1073/pnas.1117620109

Cite this

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abstract = "The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence - in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains - that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.",

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Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa. / Berna, Francesco; Goldberg, Paul; Horwitz, Liora Kolska et al.
In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 109, No. 20, 15.05.2012, p. E1215-E1220.

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa

Abstract

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Keywords

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