Humans learn to make fire
Evidence from around 400,000 years ago marks the shift from capturing fire to starting it.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 50 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 50 thousand years
- Era
- Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary
Work published in 2025 identified the earliest direct evidence of deliberate fire production, at Barnham in the UK, around 400,000 years ago — the point at which humans stop depending on lightning and wildfire and become able to produce fire on demand. Around the same time, hearths at Qesem Cave in Israel show repeated use of a single central fireplace over tens of thousands of years. Habitual fire changes the day, the diet, the range and the social space.