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Published online 30 April 2004 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news040426-16
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Earliest fire sheds light on hominids
Ancient hearths unveiled as nearly 800 millennia old.
You could travel back 790,000 years and still find someone to light your fire: archaeologists have collected evidence that early humans mastered fire much earlier than previously thought.
There is already good evidence for hearths that are 250,000 years old, and it was widely believed that the first controlled handling of fire occurred 400,000 to 500,000 years ago.
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