Scientists reveal that fire was tamed in Europe much earlier than previously thought, according to a new discovery.

The use of fire is regarded as one of the fundamental technological breakthroughs for our ancestors. Although the earliest evidence of fire usage dates back 1.6 million years, the question of when we learned to ignite it independently or at least maintain its burning remains unanswered.

However, new research has shed light on this mystery. Published in the journal Research Square, it reveals episodes of Neanderthal life in the Orignac-3 cave in France. While this species is not our direct ancestor, the discovery is nonetheless significant.

Researchers focused on the deposits on the cave walls and ceilings, finding traces of soot within them. By employing uranium-thorium dating methods, they concluded that fire burned here at different times over approximately 1,000 years, being ignited more than 20 times roughly every 40 years. The soot dating indicated that this occurred between 277,000 and 248,000 years ago.

It is believed that humans utilized fire in Africa about 1.6 million years ago, while the earliest evidence in Europe dates back around 800,000 years. However, all these episodes do not provide clear confirmation that our ancestors fully understood how to interact with fire. Most likely, they relied on natural fire, which could arise, for example, from lightning strikes, but they probably did not yet know how to maintain it for extended periods.

The Orignac-3 site, however, provides the earliest evidence that humans had a "familiar" relationship with fire and could store it for long durations and transport it from place to place. Yet, we still lack confirmation that the inhabitants of this cave could ignite fire independently.

Previously, the earliest evidence of multiple uses of fire was dated to 245,000 years ago and was found in Spain. This means these findings could be older by more than 20,000 years.

It is likely that the complete "taming" of fire by Neanderthals occurred even earlier, but for now, we can confidently state that 270,000 years ago, it was already a familiar part of their daily lives.

Interestingly, the first evidence that Neanderthals learned to ignite fire independently dates back to 50,000 years ago. Curiously, modern humans, our direct ancestors, learned to do this around the same period or even slightly later.

As previously reported, scientists discovered the oldest man-made structure in Africa. This unique bridge was constructed 476,000 years ago, long before the appearance of modern humans.