Ice Age Pyrotechnology: This is How Humans Made Fire Tens of Thousands of Years Ago

upstart writes:

Differences between the fireplaces indicate ingenious use:

Whether for cooking, heating, as a light source or for making tools - it is assumed that fire was essential for the survival of people in the Ice Age. However, it is puzzling that hardly any well-preserved evidence of fireplaces from the coldest period of the Ice Age in Europe has been found so far. A group of scientists led by the University of Algarve and the University of Vienna has now been able to shed some light on the mystery of Ice Age fire. Their analysis of three hearths at a prehistoric site in Ukraine shows that people of the last Ice Age built different types of hearths and used mainly wood, but possibly also bones and fat, to fuel their fires. The results have been published in the journal Geoarchaeology.

Archaeological research shows that Homo sapiens in Europe during the Upper Paleolithic period, between 45,000 and 10,000 years ago, used fire in a variety of ways. "Fire was not just about keeping warm; it was also essential for cooking, making tools and for social gatherings," says Philip R. Nigst, one of the lead authors and an archaeologist at the University of Vienna. It has often been assumed that fire was essential for the survival of hunter-gatherers in Ice Age Europe. Surprisingly, however, there is little well-preserved evidence of fire use from the coldest period of the Ice Age - between 26,500 and 19,000 years ago - in Europe. "We know that fire was widespread before and after this period, but there is little evidence from the height of the Ice Age," says William Murphree, lead author of the study and geoarchaeologist at the University of Algarve.

[...] The analysis also shows that humans used wood as their main fuel during the peak of the Ice Age, with charcoal analyses indicating spruce wood. However, other fuels such as bone or fat could have been used. "Some of the animal bones found at the site were burnt in a fire with a temperature of over 650 degrees Celsius. We are currently investigating whether they were used as fuel or just accidentally burned," explains Marjolein D. Bosch, one of the authors and an zooarchaeologist at the University of Vienna, the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Natural History Museum Vienna.

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