Did the first inhabitants of the Caune de l’Arago between 700,000 and 400,000 years BP have domesticated fire? Did they know how to light the fire at will?

Henry De Lumley

doi:10.5802/crgeos.113

Abstract

This note is a comment to the article “Search for early traces of fire in the Caune de l’Arago at Tautavel (Eastern Pyrenees, France), combining magnetic susceptibility measurements, microscopic observations, and Raman analysis” by Deldicque et al., published online on July 29, 2021, in Comptes Rendus Géoscience in Volume 353, 2021, pages 247-264, https://doi.org/10.5802/crgeos.66. The authors’ response to this comment has also been published in Comptes Rendus Géoscience in Volume 354, 2022, pages 47-50, https://doi.org/10.5802/crgeos.114.

Highlights

Henry de Lumley Did the first inhabitants of the Caune de l’Arago between 700,000 and 400,000 years BP have domesticated fire? Did they know how to light the fire at will?
A recent article “Search for early traces of fire in the Caune de l’Arago at Tautavel (Eastern Pyrenees, France) combining magnetic susceptibility measurements, microscopic observation and Raman analysis” has been published in Comptes Rendus Géoscience in Volume 353, 2021, pages 247264 (Deldicque et al [2021]). It reports the presence of traces of fire, in the filling of the Caune de l’Arago, dated to an ancient period of the middle Pleistocene
No trace of ashes, no stone splintered by fire have been spotted

Summary

Introduction

Henry de Lumley Did the first inhabitants of the Caune de l’Arago between 700,000 and 400,000 years BP have domesticated fire? Did they know how to light the fire at will?. Henry de Lumley Did the first inhabitants of the Caune de l’Arago between 700,000 and 400,000 years BP have domesticated fire?

Results

Conclusion