It's easy to take for granted that with the flick of a lighter or the turn of a furnace knob, modern humans can conjure flames — cooking food, lighting candles or warming homes. For much of our ...

Four hundred thousand years ago, near a water hole on grasslands bordering a forest in what is now southern England, a group of Neandertals struck chunks of iron pyrite against flint to create sparks, ...

Some of history's most important inventions can be credited to the British, from the steam engine to the World Wide Web. Now, research places one of the world's most profound discoveries on our shores ...

Neanderthals 400,000 years ago were striking flints to make fires, researchers have found. Neanderthals 400,000 years ago were striking flints to make fires, researchers have found. An artist’s ...

At a site called East Farm in England, recent excavations revealed reddened silt, flint handaxes distorted by heat, and fragments of a mineral—iron pyrite—that could have been used to make sparks on ...

Set aside your matches or lighter and try to start a fire; chances are you’ll be left cold. But as early as 400,000 years ago ancient hominins might have had the skills to conjure flame, according to ...