Free Republic

...In Europe, it is generally accepted that fire was routinely exploited by hominins at least 350,000 years ago, with some suggestion of fire control being linked to the expansion of a particular stone tool technology known as the Acheulean... there is a concurrent rise in apparent prehistoric "fireplaces", or hearths, and burnt Acheulean artefacts, such as hand-axes made from flint and a sedimentary rock called chert, at lots of European sites dated between 450,000 and 250,000. Many of these also contain charred plant materials and bones...Before the new evidence, the oldest clear evidence of fire control in Europe came from...

Discovered in August 2017 within a small building, possibly a shrine, at the site of Zincirli (called "Sam'al" in ancient times), in Turkey, the incantation is inscribed on a stone cosmetic container. Written by a man who practiced magic who is called "Rahim son of Shadadan," the incantation "describes the seizure of a threatening creature [called] the 'devourer,'" wrote Madadh Richey and Dennis Pardee in the abstract of a presentation they gave recently at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting. That event took place in Denver between Nov 17 and 21. The blood of the devourer was used to...

An international team led by the University of Toronto and Hebrew University has identified the earliest known evidence of the use of fire by human ancestors. Microscopic traces of wood ash, alongside animal bones and stone tools, were found in a layer dated to one million years ago at the Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa. "The analysis pushes the timing for the human use of fire back by 300,000 years, suggesting that human ancestors as early as Homo erectus may have begun using fire as part of their way of life," said U of T anthropologist Michael Chazan, co-director of...