By Nira Alperson-Afil
The manipulation of fireside by means of early hominins was once a turning element in our evolutionary background. as soon as "domesticated", hearth supplied heat, mild and safety from predators, in addition to permitting the exploitation of a brand new variety of meals. This publication offers the spatial analyses of burned and unburned flint goods which offer proof for the managed use of fireplace on the 790,000-year-old Acheulian website of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov (GBY). Clusters of burned flint, interpreted because the remnants of hearths, take place through the complete occupational series of the location. the truth that fireplace is repetitively used means that the data of fire-making and the technological talents of the Acheulian hominins of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov enabled them to set hearth at will in various environmental settings.
"Control of fireside marks an important landmark in human evolution, offering heat, safety, and lots of new meals. this significant quantity compellingly exhibits that fireplace used to be already in average use a few 800,000 years ago."John D. Speth, Museum of Anthropology, collage of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
"A significant contribution to wisdom of early human hearth historical past, the unearths at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov upload immensely to the image of our early ancestors via the hearth. The authors current a painstaking and multidimensional clinical research which may still persuade even sceptics of the significance of fireplace use in prehistory"John A.J. Gowlett, British Academy Centenary learn venture, The Archaeology of the Social mind, UK
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Extra resources for The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov Volume II: Ancient Flames and Controlled Use of Fire
Example text
Through burning, hematite (Fe2O4) in the soil becomes reduced to the more magnetic magnetite (Fe3O4), and where these minerals have been heated above their Curie temperature and then cooled, they acquire remanent magnetism (measurable in the lab). In addition, measurement (in the field or in the lab) of the magnetic susceptibility of burned sediments through examination of enhanced susceptibility of magnetic magnetite (Fe3O4) over Fe2O3 can suggest heating of the sediments. Other means of determining burning of sediments are Thermoluminescence (TL) and Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) analyses.
Furthermore, there is a tendency for wood and charcoal to cluster together spatially in discrete clumps (Freeman 1975). Excavations at Bolomor Cave (Valencia, Spain) have uncovered what is currently the most ancient known evidence for the use of fire in the Iberian Peninsula (Fernández Peris 2003). 35 Ma; hearths were uncovered in level XI, where they appear as distinct marks of dark soil associated with fragments of burned bones (H. Fluck 2007, personal communication). In Cantabria, the early Middle Pleistocene site of San Quirce revealed an abundant lithic industry without faunal remains.
Only four retouched flakes were found in association with the elephant. An area to the southeast yielded other remains of the same individual in addition to bovid remains. In that area, several patches of charcoal were observed (Howell 1966), suggesting that the processing of the elephant’s meat involved the use of fire. In total, some 232 fragments of charcoal are known from Torralba, in addition to hundreds of near-microscopic fragments (Freeman 1975). The unique conditions of preservation enabled the preservation not only of charcoal but of some 76 wooden fragments and 31 casts of decayed large wooden objects, some with deliberate cultural alteration (Freeman 1975).
