What are the Earliest Methods of Firemaking and Where Did They Appear?

By Dig Labs Contributors
Source: Dig Labs Project

Discoveries of "fire-making kits" in the Paleolithic show that early humans used friction and percussion tools to generate sparks at will.

We invite readers to contribute to this collaborative research page.
Join Our Collaborative Research
BY
Dig Labs Contributors
Investigating historic and prehistoric mysteries together through crowdfunded research.
SOURCE
Dig Labs Project

Introduction

The control of fire was a pivotal technological leap, but the transition from opportunistic scavenging to intentional firemaking is still being mapped. Discoveries of "fire-making kits" in the Paleolithic show that early humans used friction and percussion tools to generate sparks at will. This ability allowed our species to inhabit colder climates and extend the utility of the day.

Area » Dig Labs
"What are the Earliest Methods of Firemaking and Where Did They Appear?" by Dig Labs Contributors is licensed by the Observatory under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). For permissions requests beyond the scope of this license, please see Observatory.wiki’s Reuse and Reprint Rights guidance.
We invite readers to contribute to this collaborative research page.
Join Our Collaborative Research
Send us a note about this articleDonate to the Observatory