Fire
use appears to have been relatively common among Neandertals in the
Middle Palaeolithic. However, the means by which Neandertals procured
their fire—either through the collection of natural fire, or by
producing it themselves using tools—is still a matter of debate. We
present here the first direct artefactual evidence for regular,
systematic fire production by Neandertals. From archaeological layers
attributed to late Mousterian industries at multiple sites throughout
France, primarily to the Mousterian of Acheulean Tradition (MTA)
technoculture (ca. 50,000 years BP), we identify using microwear
analysis dozens of late Middle Palaeolithic bifacial tools that exhibit
macroscopic and microscopic traces suggesting repeated percussion and/or
forceful abrasion with a hard mineral material. Both the locations and
nature of the polish and associated striations are comparable to those
obtained experimentally by obliquely percussing fragments of pyrite (FeS2)
against the flat/convex sides of a biface to make fire. The striations
within these discrete use zones are always oriented roughly parallel to
the longitudinal axis of the tool, allowing us to rule out taphonomic
origins for these traces. We therefore suggest that the occasional use
of bifaces as ‘strike-a-lights’ was a technocultural feature shared
among the late Neandertals in France.
Introduction
Most
people today are familiar with the concept of striking steel against
flint to produce a shower of sparks that fall onto tinder, which begins
to smoulder, and when placed into a bundle of dried grass, can be gently
blown into flame. Prior to cigarette lighters and wooden matches, the
flint-and-steel method was among the most common fire making systems in
modern times, originating in the Iron Age1,2,3.
Prior to their introduction to metal products by Western colonialists,
numerous hunter-gatherer, pastoralist and horticulturalist societies
employed the minerals pyrite or marcasite—two very similar species of
iron disulphide (FeS2) that are virtually indistinguishable
from one another in their nodular or crystal aggregate forms, referred
to hereafter simply as pyrite—in place of steel for their fire making
needs. Ethnographic accounts describe the flint-and-pyrite (and in some
cases, pyrite-on-pyrite) fire making system being employed from Alaska
and Canada to Tierra del Fuego in the Americas, and from Australia and
Melanesia to Siberia, and only a few instances noted in Africa1,4,5. However, the earliest known instances of percussive fire making extend much deeper into the prehistoric past.
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des tactiques d’exploitation du milieu au Paléolithique moyen. La
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Acknowledgements
Funding
was provided by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
(Grant# PGW-13-42) and the Stichting Nederlands Museum voor
Anthropologie en Praehistorie (SNMAP). Thanks to J. Airvaux, J. Jaubert,
J.-J. Hublin, S. McPherron, E. Ihuel, D. Colonge, M. Brenet, J.-M.
Geneste and A. Turq for providing access to the studied materials. Some
of the bifaces used in the experiments were produced by D. Pomstra and
B. Ginelli. Earlier versions of this article benefitted greatly from
revisions provided by W. Roebroeks. A.C.S. and M.S. are grateful for the
insightful discussions held with various members of the Leiden Human
Origins Group and Material Culture Studies Group.
Author information
Affiliations
Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands
- A. C. Sorensen
- & M. Soressi
INRAP, GSO, Bègles, France
- E. Claud
UMR 5199 PACEA, Université de Bordeaux, Pessac, France
- E. Claud
Contributions
A.C.S. conceived/designed the study in collaboration with M.S. and E.C., A.C.S. conceptualised and conducted the experiments, A.C.S. and E.C. analysed the results, M.S. provided and analysed archaeological materials, A.C.S. wrote the manuscript with input from E.C. and M.S., A.C.S. prepared the figures, tables and supplementary information, all photographs appearing in the article and the Supplementary Information were taken by A.C.S.Competing Interests
The authors declare no competing interests.Corresponding author
Correspondence to A. C. Sorensen.Electronic supplementary material
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