Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Berna F
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3356665 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa.
Berna Francesco F Goldberg Paul P Horwitz Liora Kolska LK Brink James J Holt Sharon S Bamford Marion M Chazan Michael M
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20120402 20
The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence--in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains--that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, ...[more]
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