Photosgraphs showing refitting lithic pieces of flint objects. CAPTION: Extended Data Fig. 2: Heat shattered handaxes from Barnham.a. Central part of heat-shattered handaxe with 25 refitting pieces excavated from within a small zone (35 cm across) in Area I East. b. Top part of heat-shattered handaxe from Area I East. c. Heat-altered handaxe from Area I East.

Images showing two pyrite pseudomorphs analysed with various methods. CAPTION: Figure 2.2. Pyrite pseudomorph specimen 3818. (a–e) Photographs and (f–g) focus variation microscope images of fracture surfaces; (h–k) textural features of the oxidised pyrite fragment observed under the scanning electron microscope.

Photos of heat-altered handaxe and two pieces of altered pyrite. CAPTION: a, Heat-altered handaxe from palaeosol in Area I East with close-up of fractured surface caused by fire. b, Fragment of pyrite found on the surface of palaeosol in Area IV(6). c, Fragment of pyrite from palaeosol in Area VI, found in association with concentrations of heated flint.

Photos showing excavation in Area 1 East, from different angles including a close-up of section. Reddened sediment layer is visible. CAPTION: a, Before excavation in 2022 from north–west, showing truncation by commercial excavation of RCS within palaeosol complex. Sections A–A′, B–B′ and position of sampling column are indicated. b, Adjacent area from north under excavation in 2024. c, Partly excavated RCS within palaeosol complex in 2023 from north-west showing sampling locations and column.

🧪🏺🦣 Strong case for *oldest fire-starting* 🔥 capacity, before 400 Ka, suggested by multi-stranded analysis: geochem, magnetic, sedimentary evidence of anthropogenic burning, + heated lithics + remains of iron pyrite.
Behaviourally heading towards #Neanderthals.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fieldwork day to Creswell Crags as part of our new project "Fire & Climate: Speleothems and the British Palaeolithic" funded by @britishacademy.bsky.social with Rob Hosfield & Sam Nicholson #soot #fire #aDNA

Onset of extensive human fire use 50,000 y ago | PNAS Fire is a pivotal aspect of human involvement in the carbon cycle. However, the precise timing of the large-scale human fire use remains uncertain....

Onset of extensive human fire use 50,000 y ago | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🔥 Reminder — join us next Tuesday as Dr. Carolina Mallol explores how Neandertals used fire!
👉 Info & registration: www.icarehb.com/lexa/

Charcoal insights on the vegetation, climate and subsistence patterns at Wonderwerk Cave Wonderwerk Cave is one of the most important archaeological sites in central southern Africa as it preserves multiple indicators of past environments,…

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

|✨ Publication Alert! ✨|
Our latest research on #pyroarchaeology has just been published with @springernature.com in the #JournalOfArchaeologicalMethodAndTheory!
-> Late Mid-Pleistocene hominin fire control inferred from sooty speleothem analysis 🔥
Read here: rdcu.be/ehqag

Our commission is organizing a fire session at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria, April 27th to May 2nd, 2025: “Combining geosciences and pyroarchaeology methods to study past and present fire dynamics and human fire use/interactions” #EGU25 Join us!

Join us in Vienna in April 2025 for a fabulous session on human fire interactions and past fire dynamics in archaeology and geosciences. meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/sessio...

Screenshot from Homepage for the conference Developing international geoarchaeology

Colleagues from #geoarchaeology, spread the information:
The german "Arbeitskreis Geoarchäologie" celebrates its 20th anniversary with a joint conference with the international group Developing International Geoarchaeology DIG: May 21st to 25th 2025 in #Tübingen
sites.google.com/view/dig2025...

Deciphering past human actions through experimental archaeology - it is all in the sediments! Join us for the next hybrid @icarehb.bsky.social LEXA seminar on Dec 3rd. You can register here www.icarehb.com/lexa/

Hearth management at a middle Paleolithic rock shelter site: Smoke density analysis at Tor Faraj, Jordan Paleolithic rock shelters often include several hearths located in different parts of the site. In this paper, we analyze relevant data from Middle Pa…

Hearth management at a middle Paleolithic rock shelter site: Smoke density analysis at Tor Faraj, Jordan www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper "A Neanderthal's specialised burning structure compatible with tar obtention". Ochando et al. t.co/FVKkCtyCcP

Our commission is organizing a fire session at the General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria, April 27th to May 2nd, 2025: “Combining geosciences and pyroarchaeology methods to study past and present fire dynamics and human fire use/interactions” #EGU25 Join us!

Here to share and promote papers, conference and research in pyroarchaeology #UISPP #pyroarchaeology