This is the most remarkable breakthrough in understanding human evolution, proving that Neanderthals possessed sophisticated knowledge of the properties of flint and pyrite far earlier than previously imagined. This ability to create and control fire freed humans from dependence on natural fires, enabling them to choose campsites, process a wider variety of foods and fuel brain development that fundamentally transformed survival.
The Suffolk fire claim stretches circumstantial evidence beyond what the data supports, lacking the smoking gun of wear traces on flint tools that definitively prove fire-making at later Neanderthal sites. Fire-making developed through scattered fits and starts across multiple groups, who discovered, lost, and rediscovered the ability over time rather than signifying a singular evolutionary breakthrough.
There's a 50% chance that a Neanderthal will be born again after 2099, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
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