did neanderthals have fire?

[rieseren16]

did neanderthals have fire?

[jno]

This site says probably. They almost certainly had it, from forest fires or whatever, the question is more whether they were able to keep it going, and whether they were able to start one themselves. 

[justineo]

From what I have recently read it seems that fire has been used since Homo Erectus times but only managing and using fire rather than making fire.  Neanderthals showed mental sophistication and used technology to overcome their environmental problems.  There is evidence of skin scrapers and therefore, clothes.  They also buried their dead with great ritual and put artifacts in the graves.  This could show that they had a concept of the afterlife and therefore, the ability to have abstract thought. Good question!

[tock24]

Try reading 'clan of the cave bear', by Jean Eaul [sp?]. May be fiction, but her research was exhaustive!

[Octavius]

In 1998, what may be one of Europe's oldest hearths was found at a 400,000-year-old Stone Age site in England by archaeologists from Liverpool University. The find consisted of an area of red, baked sediments, whose limited expanse suggests a controlled fire rather than a natural one.

The site, near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, was in a favorable spot near a source of water. It seems to have been used over centuries during a lull between the Ice Ages, when numerous large mammals, including bear and deer, undoubtedly hunted by early humans, were found in the area. Thousands of flint flakes have been discovered at the camp, the by-products of stone tool manufacturing, and many have been matched to the
cores from which they were struck.

Human control of fire is well documented at sites dating from 150,000 to 200,000 years ago, and remains of hearths between 300,000 and 400,000 years old have been found at a handful of sites in France, Hungary, and China. This find provides further evidence that early humans had mastered the use of fire, in this case the ancestors of Neandertals in northern Europe.

[Octavius]

In 1998, what may be one of Europe's oldest hearths was found at a 400,000-year-old Stone Age site in England by archaeologists from Liverpool University. The find consisted of an area of red, baked sediments, whose limited expanse suggests a controlled fire rather than a natural one.

The site, near Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, was in a favorable spot near a source of water. It seems to have been used over centuries during a lull between the Ice Ages, when numerous large mammals, including bear and deer, undoubtedly hunted by early humans, were found in the area. Thousands of flint flakes have been discovered at the camp, the by-products of stone tool manufacturing, and many have been matched to the
cores from which they were struck.

Human control of fire is well documented at sites dating from 150,000 to 200,000 years ago, and remains of hearths between 300,000 and 400,000 years old have been found at a handful of sites in France, Hungary, and China. This find provides further evidence that early humans had mastered the use of fire, in this case the ancestors of Neanderthals in northern Europe.