The established understanding of human origins has been significantly altered by an international team of researchers, including Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Dr. Liora Kolska Horwitz, who have pushed back the origin of intentional fire use to 1.8 million years ago. Published this month in the PLOS ONE journal, these findings from South Africa’s Wonderwerk Cave demonstrate how transnational academic networks assert authority over foundational historical narratives, even as the specific identities of the earliest human occupants remain unconfirmed.
The new research, which pushes back the origin of intentional fire use by several hundred thousand years, supersedes previous findings from 2012 that dated evidence from a more superficial level of the same cave to one million years ago. This re-evaluation of humanity's past is a direct result of the work by this international consortium.
Dr. Kolska Horwitz, co-director of the Wonderwerk Cave project with Prof. Michael Chazan of the University of Toronto, confirmed the team's success in extending the timeline. She stated that the researchers developed an innovative technique to detect signs of burns on fossilized bones, allowing them to confirm indications of fire in a lower, older level, well over a million years ago. The two levels are separated by approximately 80 centimeters of sediments.
The Globalist Mechanism of Historical Redefinition
The deeper level of the cave, where the earliest evidence was found, was in use between circa 1.79 and 1.079 million years ago. Dr. Kolska Horwitz specified that the sample used for this study was close to the bottom, aligning with the 1.8 million years ago period. The evidence confirms intentional use of fire, meaning it was purposefully introduced, even if early humans were not necessarily igniting it themselves.
This intentionality is crucial, as the fire was found at least 30 meters from the cave entrance, ruling out natural wildfires. Furthermore, the absence of materials like guano, which could cause spontaneous combustion, confirms that the fire "must have been introduced there by someone," according to Dr. Kolska Horwitz. This points to early human agency in shaping their environment.
The Wonderwerk Cave site itself is unique, having been continuously occupied for two million years. This long record spans from the earliest known occupants, associated with a stone tool culture called the Oldowan, to a farmer’s family that temporarily sheltered there in the early 20th century. Dr. Kolska Horwitz described it as the "oldest cave home," where people intentionally moved in, unlike most Oldowan sites which were open-air campsites.
The Cost of Unidentified Origins
Despite the extensive occupation record and the presence of stone tools from all phases, a critical void remains: no human bones have ever been found in any level of the cave. This absence prevents scholars from definitively identifying the kind of early humans who lived there, including those associated with the earliest use of fire. Dr. Kolska Horwitz noted that several hominins were present in southern Africa at that time, and while it was "likely it was a form of Homo erectus," certainty is elusive. This lack of definitive identity for the earliest inhabitants underscores a fundamental dispossession of their specific historical claim.
The method for detecting burns on bones, developed by the PLOS ONE study authors, opens new possibilities for searching for traces of fires across prehistoric sites worldwide. Dr. Kolska Horwitz highlighted that the new method uses luminescence to detect signs of burning, contrasting it with standard, expensive, and invasive methods that require destroying bone evidence. The goal was to develop a "quick, cheap, and can also be run by people working in the field in a small field station" method.
The dating of the site was primarily carried out in previous years by an Israeli team from the Hebrew University, including Dr. Kolska Horwitz, and the Geological Survey of Israel. They utilized paleomagnetic dating, which relies on changes in Earth’s magnetic field, and cosmogenic burial dating, based on quartz grains in sediments. With the intentional use of fire now confirmed close to 1.8 million years ago, archaeologists plan to extend their search for evidence even deeper, into the two-million-year-old occupation level, posing "the big question now." This continuous re-evaluation by transnational academic bodies ensures a constant reshaping of historical understanding.