Earliest proof of humans making fire found in UK and it’s 400,000 years old

A pair of inch-long mineral chunks found in Suffolk has triggered an ‘enormous’ change in our understanding of early human life.

The pieces of pyrite – an iron-rich material which makes sparks when struck with flint – are proof that prehistorical humans were deliberately starting fires in an abandoned clay pit near the village of Barnham.

That wouldn’t be particularly surprising if the fire had been started less recently than 50,000 years ago – we know Neanderthals learned the skill by then thanks to a site in France.

But archaeologists have dated the Barnham discovery to 400,000 years ago.

‘This is the most exciting discovery of my 40-year career’, Nick Ashton, curator of Paleolithic collections at the British Museum, and part of the team who made the find.

Rob Davis, who co-authored