300,000 year old hearth found in Isreal

[shunyadragon]

Our ancestors lived and cooked in this cave in Israel 300,000 years ago.

300,000-Year-Old Hearth Uncovered in Israel

REHOVOT, ISRAEL—A repeatedly-used hearth full of ash and charred bone has been uncovered in Israel’s Qesem Cave. The hearth measures more than six feet in diameter at its widest point, and was located so that many individuals could have used it. Bits of stone tools that may have been used for butchering animals were also found in and around the hearth. “[The finds] …tell us something about the impressive levels of social and cognitive development of humans living some 300,000 years ago,” said Ruth Shahack-Gross of the Weizmann Institute of Science. But it is not clear exactly which hominins lived in the cave and shared this large campfire.

[37818]

Our ancestors lived and cooked in this cave in Israel 300,000 years ago.

The articles do not give the dating methods used.

see also http://www.livescience.com/42861-ear...nd-israel.html

On the assumption that 300,000 years was determined very accurately. This would make the Biblical flood over 300,000 years ago.

[shunyadragon]

Use of fire is more ancient then 300,000 years. Dating methods are usually more than one method. Dating the bone, not using C14 dating, was the most likely the primary method.

Anthropologists have debated what constitutes the earliest evidence of controlled fire use — and which hominin species was responsible for it. Ash and burnt bone in Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa suggests human ancestors used fire at least 1 million years ago. Some researchers, meanwhile, have speculated that the teeth of Homo erectus suggest this early human was adapted to eat food cooked over a fire by 1.9 million years ago. A study out last year in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal argued that fire-builders would have needed some sophisticated abilities to keep their hearths burning, such as long-term planning (gathering firewood) and group cooperation.