Rare charcoal fragments from an historic lakeshore campsite are providing new clues about fireplace use, useful resource administration, and the environmental information of a few of humanity’s earliest fireplace customers.
Long earlier than cities, farms, or written language existed, a few of humanity’s ancestors had already found a useful resource that may remodel the course of human evolution: fireplace. But controlling fireplace was solely a part of the problem. Keeping it burning required a dependable provide of gasoline, and new analysis means that entry to firewood might have helped decide the place individuals lived practically 800,000 years in the past.
At the prehistoric web site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) in northern Israel, scientists have uncovered uncommon clues preserved in historic charcoal fragments. The findings reveal not solely what fueled among the world’s earliest recognized campfires, but additionally how these early people organized their lives round a lakeshore setting wealthy in meals, water, uncooked supplies, and gasoline.
The research, revealed in Quaternary Science Reviews, analyzed one of many oldest and most intensive charcoal collections ever recovered from a prehistoric web site. The worldwide analysis staff, which included scientists from Israel, Spain, and Germany, discovered proof that the inhabitants of GBY used the panorama in surprisingly sensible methods, benefiting from pure assets that made long-term occupation attainable.
A Lakeshore That Had Everything
Around 780,000 years in the past, the realm appeared very totally different from as we speak. GBY sat on the sting of historic Lake Hula, a freshwater ecosystem surrounded by wetlands, woodland, and ample wildlife. For hunter-gatherers, it might have been an exceptionally enticing place to reside.
Archaeologists have recognized greater than 20 occupation layers on the web site, exhibiting that generations of Acheulian hominins repeatedly returned to the identical location over hundreds of years. Excavations led by Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have uncovered stone instruments, plant meals, fish stays, and the bones of huge animals, offering some of the detailed information of early human life wherever on the earth.
One of the positioning’s most exceptional discoveries is the stays of a straight-tusked elephant, an animal that might weigh a number of instances greater than a contemporary African elephant. The association of the bones suggests it was butchered on the web site, providing a uncommon glimpse into large-game searching and processing in the course of the Lower Paleolithic.
The Hidden Story Inside Ancient Charcoal
While elephant bones and stone instruments have a tendency to draw consideration, researchers turned their focus to one thing far much less dramatic: charcoal.
Charcoal hardly ever survives for lots of of hundreds of years, making the GBY assortment extraordinary. Because wooden displays the vegetation rising within the surrounding setting, every fragment serves as a tiny report of the traditional panorama.
The staff examined 266 charcoal items underneath a microscope, figuring out the species from which they originated. The results revealed a surprisingly diverse environment containing ash, willow, grapevine, oleander, olive, oak, pistachio, and pomegranate.
The pomegranate finding represents the earliest known evidence of the fruit tree in the Levant, extending the documented history of pomegranate in the region by hundreds of thousands of years.
Perhaps even more surprising was the diversity of the charcoal itself. The burned wood represented a wider range of plant species than other botanical remains found at the site, including seeds and fruits.
Why Firewood May Have Shaped Human Settlement
The study challenges the idea that these early humans carefully selected particular tree species for fuel. Instead, the evidence points to a simpler and highly effective strategy.
Much of the wood appears to have come from driftwood naturally deposited along the lake’s edge. Branches and logs carried by water would have accumulated on the shoreline, creating an easily accessible source of fuel that required little effort to collect.
Researchers suggest that the constant availability of firewood may have been one reason why groups repeatedly returned to GBY. The site offered a rare combination of resources concentrated in a single location, reducing the energy needed to meet daily needs.
More Than Warmth and Light
The study also sheds light on how fire was used. Researchers found that concentrations of charcoal overlapped with clusters of fish remains, especially the teeth of large carp. This association provides strong evidence that fish were being cooked at the site nearly 800,000 years ago using controlled fire.
The results support the idea that the GBY hominins possessed advanced cognitive abilities. They could manage fire, organize activities around it, and incorporate it into complex food-gathering and food-processing strategies. At the same time, while activities such as hunting and tool production likely required significant planning, collecting firewood appears to have been a simpler task driven mainly by what was readily available.
Taken together, the evidence portrays a highly capable community that repeatedly returned to a resource-rich location that met many of its needs.
The charcoal assemblage from GBY offers a rare opportunity to explore the connections between fire use, environmental conditions, and hominin behavior. The findings refine scientists’ understanding of early fire use and highlight the important role local resources played in shaping settlement and survival strategies during the Middle Pleistocene.
Reference: “Paleoenvironmental and behavioral insights into firewood selection by early Middle Pleistocene hominins” by Ethel Allué, Naama Goren-Inbar, Yoel Melamed, Brigitte Urban and Nira Alperson-Afil, 3 April 2026, Quaternary Science Reviews.
DOI: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2026.109973
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