It's easy to take for granted that with the flick of a lighter or the turn of a furnace knob, modern humans can conjure flames — cooking food, lighting candles or warming homes. For much of our ...

A research team at the British Museum, led by Nick Ashton and Rob Davis, reports evidence that ancient humans could make and manage fire about 400,000 years ago. The findings, published in Nature, ...

The controlled use of fire was a key part of the development of human technology with a range of uses that greatly expanded human cultural evolution. Although evidence at a number of archaeological ...

Four hundred thousand years ago, near a water hole on grasslands bordering a forest in what is now southern England, a group of Neandertals struck chunks of iron pyrite against flint to create sparks, ...

Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. An artist's impression shows sparks from flint and pyrite, in this image released on December 10, 2025. Craig Williams, The ...