Humans made fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, discovery in Suffolk suggests

Pyrite's extreme rarity in the local area – it was not present in a database of 33,000 samples from Barnham – strongly suggested it had been sourced from chalky coastal outcrops tens of kilometres away and brought to the area for use as a fire striker. "It's incredible that some of the oldest groups of Neanderthals had the knowledge of the properties of flint, pyrite and tinder at such an early date," said Ashton. 

Geochemical tests also showed that a patch of reddened clay had been heated to temperatures of over 700C (1,292F) with repeated fire-use in the same location of the site. Together, this strongly suggested that a campfire, or hearth, that had been used by people on several occasions, according to the paper published in Nature...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/dec/10/man-made-fire-350000-years-earlier-than-previously-known-after-discovery-in-suffolk

 

Oldest Human Genomes Reveal How a Small Group Burst Out of Africa - The New York Times

DNA from European fossils dating back 45,000 years offers new clues to how our species spread across the world...

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/12/science/oldest-human-genomes-lrj-neanderthals.html

DNA Inherited From Neanderthals May Increase Risk of Covid-19 - NYTimes

The stretch of six genes seems to increase the risk of severe illness from the coronavirus. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/health/coronavirus-neanderthals.html

Multiple lines of mysterious ancient humans interbred with us - National Geographic

Modern DNA suggests that the Denisovans were surprisingly diverse—and may have been the last humans other than Homo sapiens on Earth.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/04/enigmatic-human-relative-outlived-neanderthals/

Humans bred with this mysterious species more than once, new study shows - The Washington Post

We rarely portray Neanderthals, our close relatives, as telegenic. Museum exhibits give them wild tangles of hair, and Hollywood reduces them to grunting unsophisticates. Their skulls suggest broad faces, tiny chins and jutting brows. But to mock Neanderthals is to mock ourselves: Homo sapiens had lots of sex with Homo neanderthalensis. Neanderthal genes supply between 1 percent and 4 percent of the genome in people from homelands on several continents, from Britain to Japan to Colombia.....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2018/03/15/humans-bred-with-this-mysterious-species-more-than-once-new-study-shows/

What Did Neanderthals Leave to Modern Humans? Some Surprises - The New York Times

Geneticists tell us that somewhere between 1 and 5 percent of the genome of modern Europeans and Asians consists of DNA inherited from Neanderthals, our prehistoric cousins.

At Vanderbilt University, John Anthony Capra, an evolutionary genomics professor, has been combining high-powered computation and a medical records databank to learn what a Neanderthal heritage — even a fractional one — might mean for people today....
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/science/john-anthony-capra-neanderthals-dna-humans.html?hpw&rref=science&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region