300,000-Year-Old Caveman 'Campfire' Found in Israel

[JRLeft]

A newly discovered hearth full of ash and charred bone in a cave in modern-day Israel hints that early humans sat around fires as early as 300,000 years ago — before Homo sapiens arose in Africa.

In and around the hearth, archaeologists say they also found bits of stone tools that were likely used for butchering and cutting animals.

The finds could shed light on a turning point in the development of culture "in which humans first began to regularly use fire both for cooking meat and as a focal point — a sort of campfire — for social gatherings," said archaeologist Ruth Shahack-Gross of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. [10 Things that Make Humans Special]

"They also tell us something about the impressive levels of social and cognitive development of humans living some 300,000 years ago," Shahack-Gross added in a statement.

The centrally located fire pit is about 6.5 feet (2 meters) in diameter at its widest point, and its ash layers suggest the hearth was used repeatedly over time, according to the study, which was detailed in the Journal of Archaeological Science on Jan. 25. Shahack-Gross and colleagues think these features indicate the hearth may have been used by large groups of cave dwellers. What's more, its position implies some planning went into deciding where to put the fire pit, suggesting whoever built it must have had a certain level of intelligence.

http://news.yahoo.com/300-000-old-caveman-39-campfire-39-found-152628371.html

[Adrahil]

1. Not possible, since the world is no more than 10,000 years old!

[JRLeft]

2. 6,000 it depends on what crazy you ask.

[1000words]

3. Clearly, this is a ruse by Satan to tempt us.

Be strong. Pray away the evil.

[JRLeft]

6. Of course this couldn't be true, science was created by Satan in order to confuse believers.

[get the red out]

4. Thanks for posting this

I LOVE anthropological and archeological discoveries, fascinating!

[MrScorpio]

5. Cylons/human hybrids...

Trust me.

[bemildred]

7. Fossils Date Use of Fires 1 Million Years (1988)

Archeologists in South Africa have turned up the earliest direct evidence of the use of fire: fossilized animal bones apparently charred in ancient campfires from 1 million to 1.5 million years ago.

The discovery appears to confirm and expand a less conclusive find in Kenya in 1981. It placed the earliest use of fire by early hominids, precursors of modern man, in the same time period as the one in South Africa, almost a million years earlier than had been thought before then.

The Kenya discovery relied on indirect evidence in the form of charred clay from an open archeological site. While this evidence pointed strongly to a fire made by hominids, experts say, the charring could also have come from a natural fire.

The new evidence comes from a cave occupied over hundreds of thousands of years by two species of hominids, Dr. C. K. Brain, an archeologist at South Africa's Transvaal Museum, and a colleague report in the current issue of the British journal Nature. Moreover, it appears to fix the discovery of fire as a practical tool with some precision, at least in that part of Africa.


http://www.nytimes.com/1988/12/01/world/fossils-date-use-of-fires-1-million-years.html

[Behind the Aegis]

8. well....