An artificial intelligence tool has uncovered hidden evidence of ancient fire at a million-year-old archaeological site in Israel. Applying this technology elsewhere could revolutionize our understanding of when and where humans began to control fire. This is considered one of the most important innovations of all time. A related paper was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Archaeologists already have some techniques for determining whether ancient people used fire. For example, look for signs of discoloration of prehistoric bones or bending of stone tools to see if they are consistent with exposure to temperatures of 450°C or higher, but such evidence is rarely found at sites older than 500,000 years.
Last year, an Israeli research team launched a deep-learning artificial intelligence tool that can identify more subtle signs of exposure to fires at temperatures between 200 and 300 degrees Celsius.
The researchers trained the algorithm by collecting flint blocks from non-archaeological sites in rural Israel, heating them to a specific temperature in the lab, and letting the AI recognize subtle changes in the flint’s response to ultraviolet light.
Now, the team, in collaboration with Michael Chazan of the University of Toronto in Canada, has used the algorithm to observe flint from the 1-million-year-old hominin site in Evron Quarry, Israel. “We chose it here because it has the same kind of flint that was used in the previous study. But there’s no reason to think there would be evidence of burning there,” Chazan said.
Surprisingly, the AI tool showed that many of the flint tools on site were heated, mostly to around 400°C.
The research team took a closer look at the large pieces of bone recovered from the site and used available technology to confirm that they were also heated. Without AI-validated flint results, no one would bother testing these bones for thermal exposure, Chazan said.
The collection of heated flint and bone suggests evidence that ancient humans controlled Evron Quarry’s fire rather than using natural wildfires.
There is little evidence that humans used fire 1.5 million years ago. According to Chazan, AI tools could be used to test a popular hypothesis that fire and cooking were common around 1.8 million to 2 million years ago.
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