The authors write: "However, surprisingly, evidence for use of fire in the Early and early Middle Pleistocene of Europe is extremely weak. Or, more exactly, it is nonexistent, until ∼300–400 ka." They add that their review "shows that the earliest possible evidence of fire comes from two sites dated to ∼400 ka, Beeches Pit in England and Schöningen in Germany." Later they state: "We suggest that the European record displays a strong signal, in the sense that, from ∼400 to 300 ka ago, many proxies indicate a habitual use of fire" and conclude that "the habitual and controlled use of fire was a late phenomenon, dating to the second half of the Middle Pleistocene."

The authors state: "Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma." They continue: "To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context." Later they add that this evidence shows "a very close association between hominin occupation and the presence of fire deep inside Wonderwerk Cave during the Early Acheulean," and conclude that "our results are the oldest direct evidence of fire associated with early humans."

UCL reports that a collection of artefacts uncovered at Barnham, England, provides 'the earliest evidence of early humans intentionally making fire nearly 350,000 years earlier than previously thought.' The artefacts, described in Nature, 'date to about 400,000 years ago and include scorched earth, fire-cracked flint handaxes, and two fragments of iron pyrite'. Sediments show geochemical signals that 'fires were repeatedly lit in the same spot', and the imported pyrite and heated flints 'point to their combined use in creating and controlling fire.' The press release contrasts this with earlier African sites where humans 'had used natural fire over a million years ago' but without clear evidence of creating fire.

A study of the Zhoukoudian hominin site in China, often associated with Homo erectus ("Peking Man"), reports thermally altered sediments and burned bone that the authors interpret as evidence of fire use by hominins in the Middle Pleistocene. The dating of the relevant layers places this activity several hundred thousand years ago, contributing to the record of controlled or at least recurrent fire use before the 400,000-year mark, although the precise behavioral interpretation (occasional vs. habitual control) remains debated.

The PAB project has been working on the evidence of fire use by early humans, with a focus on three sites in the Breckland of Suffolk – at Barnham, Beeches Pit and Elveden – that date to around 400,000 years ago. These sites preserve the remains of camps where people lived and worked and include hearths, burned sediments and other traces of fire use. Together, the evidence from these sites shows that early humans in Britain were using fire in a controlled way by about 400,000 years ago, including maintaining hearths and repeatedly burning the same areas.

Studies at Qesem Cave, a Middle Pleistocene site in Israel, have revealed extensive hearth features with ash, charred bones and heated sediments. The sequence is dated broadly to between about 420,000 and 200,000 years ago. Researchers interpret the repeated hearths and associated faunal and lithic remains as evidence of habitual, controlled use of fire by hominins in the Levant during this time, emphasizing that fire became a regular component of subsistence and site use in the later Middle Pleistocene.

Berna et al. report on sediment analyses from Wonderwerk Cave showing burned bone and ashed plant remains within intact archaeological layers deep inside the cave. These microstratigraphic and mineralogical signatures indicate in situ burning by hominins rather than natural fires. The relevant deposits are dated to approximately 1.0 million years ago, and the authors interpret them as evidence for early fire use in Africa, though the scale and regularity of this use remains debated compared to the clearer signal of habitual, controlled fire in the later Middle Pleistocene.

Known as pyrite, the fragments were found with hearths of 400,000-year-old campfires. Rather incredibly, they show that these fires were not accidental but purposefully lit and maintained. "Because pyrite doesn’t occur naturally in that landscape, its presence shows they had the ability to make fire at will. It would have been an essential part of a fire-making toolkit." The article notes that this pushes back the earliest known controlled use of fire by humans by at least 360,000 years, indicating deliberate fire-making around 400,000 years ago at Barnham in Suffolk.

Evidence from a site in southeast England suggests early humans were purposefully and repeatedly igniting blazes roughly 350,000 to 400,000 years ago, scientists report in a paper published in Nature. The objects from East Farm Barnham include iron pyrite, which produces sparks when struck with flint, reddish sediment that had been heated repeatedly, and flint handaxes showing cracking from high temperatures. Taken together, the findings suggest early human ancestors were purposefully lighting fires here, not simply harnessing and maintaining flames from naturally occurring fires, which hominins had likely already been doing for hundreds of thousands of years.

This chapter synthesizes archaeological data on early fire use and emphasizes that while occasional fire traces occur in Lower Pleistocene contexts, they are often ambiguous in origin. The author notes that a significant shift is visible in the Middle Pleistocene, especially after about 400,000 years ago, when concentrated hearth features, reddened sediments, and extensive burned faunal remains become widespread in archaeological sites. These patterns are interpreted as evidence that regular, controlled use of fire was established by at least 400 ka across several regions.

A BBC news segment on the Barnham discovery explains that researchers 'have uncovered the earliest evidence of humans creating fire, which took place in the east of England 400,000 years ago.' The report states that evidence at Barnham, including a hand axe, burnt soil and a piece of iron pyrite, is 'compelling evidence that the fire was deliberately created more than 400,000 years ago, 350,000 years earlier than previously thought.' The presenter notes that pyrite is not local and had to be brought in, indicating a deliberate fire‑making technology.

Summarizing work by Roebroeks and Villa, the university release states: "A new study involving the University of Colorado Boulder shows clear evidence of the continuous control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe dating back roughly 400,000 years." It explains that the team built "a database of 141 potential fireplace sites in Europe dating from 1.2 million years ago to 35,000 years ago" and that sites with multiple fire proxies were taken as solid evidence for controlled fire. The article notes that "the earliest evidence of habitual Neanderthal fire use comes from the Beeches Pit site in England dating to roughly 400,000 years ago" and concludes that "there was no habitual use of fire by early humans prior to roughly 400,000 years ago."

A South Africa cave yields the oldest secure evidence for a blaze controlled by human ancestors. Microscopic plant ashes and burned bone bits in Wonderwerk Cave come from soil that previously yielded several dozen stone tools. Berna’s team regards its data as the oldest secure evidence for controlled fire use, dating to about 1 million years ago. Commenting on the broader record, archaeologists Wil Roebroeks and Paola Villa state that "fire use was not a skill that was transmitted from generation to generation, over long periods of time, all over the Old World prior to about 400,000 years ago," and their review of hundreds of sites concludes that habitual, widely distributed fire use becomes common only after roughly 400,000 years ago.

Across paleoanthropology textbooks and syntheses, there is broad agreement that by roughly 400,000 years ago (late Lower to early Middle Pleistocene), controlled, habitual use of fire is well-attested at multiple sites in Europe and western Asia. Earlier candidate evidence (for example at Wonderwerk Cave and Gesher Benot Ya'aqov) pushes possible control of fire back to 1.0–0.8 million years ago, but these earlier cases are more debated. Consequently, many overviews still describe 'at least 400,000 years ago' as a conservative threshold by which controlled fire use clearly appears in the archaeological record.