Hominins at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel relied on driftwood gathered along a lakeshore to fuel their hearths, according to new research led by archaeologists from the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social and Bar-Ilan University; 780,000-year-old charcoal fragments from the site show that survival wasn’t about finding the perfect wood — it was about understanding the landscape well enough to let it provide.
Ancient inhabitants of the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site in Israel likely used some kind of earth oven that maintained a temperature below 500 degrees Celsius to cook their fish. Image credit: Ella Maru / Tel Aviv University.
“Charcoal rarely survives at such early prehistoric sites, making an unusually large assemblage from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov a unique window into the daily practices of early fire users,” said Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Professor Naama Goren-Inbar and colleagues.
“While many ancient sites preserve only fragmentary or ambiguous traces of burning, this Acheulian site provides a remarkably detailed record of repeated fire use over tens of thousands of years.”
“Gesher Benot Ya’aqov preserves a layered history of human occupation along the shores of paleolake Hula, with more than 20 archaeological horizons documenting generations of Acheulian hunter-gatherers returning to the same location.”
At Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, the researchers discovered a dynamic landscape of activity: stone tools crafted from flint, limestone, and basalt; the remains of hunted animals; and a wide array of plant foods, including fruits, nuts, and seeds gathered from the lakeshore.
“One particularly striking layer captures a dramatic moment in time: alongside stone tools and plant remains, the researchers uncovered the skull and bones of a straight-tusked elephant, evidence of large-scale hunting and butchery,” they said.
“The spatial arrangement of the remains suggests that the animal was processed on-site.”
“At the heart of this ancient camp life was fire.”
A charcoal fragment observed under an ESEM microscope. Image credit: M. Moncusil, PHES.
In their current research, the scientists focused on a single occupation layer dated to approximately 780,000 years ago.
They analyzed 266 charcoal fragments, using microscopic techniques to identify the internal structure of the wood and determine its botanical origin.
The results revealed a surprisingly diverse mix of plant species, including ash, willow, grapevine, oleander, olive, oak, pistachio, and even pomegranate, which is the earliest known evidence of this fruit tree in the Levant.
Unexpectedly, the charcoal assemblage showed greater plant diversity than other botanical remains from the site, such as seeds, fruits, or unburned wood.
This suggests that firewood collection captured a broader cross-section of the surrounding environment than other forms of plant use.
Together, these species paint a vivid picture of the ancient landscape: a mosaic of wet lakeshore vegetation and open Mediterranean woodland.
But more importantly, they reveal how early humans interacted with that landscape.
Rather than selectively gathering specific types of wood, Gesher Benot Ya’aqov hominins appear to have relied primarily on driftwood naturally accumulating along the lakeshore.
Fallen branches and logs, carried by water and deposited along the shore, would have created a readily available fuel supply.
The composition of the charcoal closely mirrors the wood available in this environment, suggesting a practical and efficient strategy, using what the landscape provides.
This insight points to a broader conclusion: access to firewood may have been a decisive factor in where these early humans chose to live.
The lakeshore offered not only fresh water, edible plants, animals, and raw materials for tools, but also a constant supply of fuel, essential for maintaining fire.
The team’s spatial analysis shows that dense clusters of charcoal overlap with concentrations of fish remains, primarily the distinctive teeth of large carp.
This co-occurrence adds compelling evidence that fish were being cooked at the site nearly 800,000 years ago, likely using carefully controlled fire.
These findings reinforce the idea that hominins possessed advanced cognitive abilities.
They were capable of controlling fire, organizing space around it, and integrating it into complex subsistence strategies.
Yet interestingly, while hunting and tool-making required elaborate planning, firewood collection itself appears to have been a more routine activity, based largely on availability rather than careful selection of specific tree species.
Together, these behaviors paint a picture of a community that was both highly skilled and deeply attuned to its environment, returning repeatedly to a place that offered everything they needed to survive and thrive.
“The Gesher Benot Ya’aqov charcoal assemblage provides a unique dataset for examining the intersection of fire use, environmental context, and hominin behavior,” the authors said.
“The findings refine current models of early fire-related practices and emphasize the importance of local resource availability in shaping patterns of occupation and subsistence during the Middle Pleistocene.”
Their paper appears in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.
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Ethel Allué et al. 2026. Paleoenvironmental and behavioral insights into firewood selection by early Middle Pleistocene hominins. Quaternary Science Reviews 38: 109973; doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2026.109973
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