Fire in Wonderwerk Cave
Burnt bone and ash deep inside a South African cave, a million years old, is among the oldest fire evidence.
- When
- Known to
- ± 100 thousand years
- Era
- Early Pleistocene, Quaternary
Sediments in Wonderwerk Cave, 30 metres from the entrance, contain ashed plant material and burnt bone fragments showing heating to temperatures consistent with a campfire, in Acheulean layers about a million years old. Being deep inside a cave largely rules out a wildfire. It is one of the strongest early cases, alongside Koobi Fora and Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, but the record of fire use in this period is sparse and every site is argued over.