The First Fire

Man and his ancestors, the hominids, have known how to use fire for at least 500,000 years, and man has probably been able to make fire for himself since about 12,000 years ago. The earliest fire was undoubtedly started naturally by lightning, so that the old and widespread religious custom of a “sacred flame” which was never allowed to go out is likely to be a folk-memory of the days when fire had to be kept alight, because people could not make it for themselves. Peking Man, who lived about 500,000 years ago, seems to have been the first species to make regular use of fire. Charred embers were found with Peking Man’s remains in a cave near the Chinese capital in 1929.