Earliest form of firelighting in the UK

[redneck]

Although as bushcrafters we seem to be obsessed with the idea of mastering the Bowdrill as the earliest and most primitive method of fireighting, surely we should instead concentrate more on the sparking methods as according to the Pitt Rivers Museum this is the earliest method of fire control using pyrities and flint, especially in this part of the world where it is neolithic in origin..time for a re-think?

"Neolithic (10,000 - 4,000 years ago) sparking flints are the earliest evidence for humans lighting, rather than simply controlling, fires"



http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/fire.html

 

[Peat]

Indeed, making fire with iron pyrites is something I have yet to try.

I suppose one of the appealing things about the bow drill is that in theory you can make one and have fire anywhere that there is wood. Whereas you have to be pretty lucky to find a bit of suitable pyrites.

Sparking flints may be the earliest EVIDENCE for humans making fire but this does not mean that friction fire lighting did not come first. Organic materials like those that a fire drill set is made from decompose rapidly, leaving almost no trace in the archaeological record, however, flint and pyrites will survive indefinately. Very few wooden artefacts survive from prehistory, despite the fact that wood would have been the most comonly used material.

Otzi 'the iceman', europe oldest natural mummy is over 5000 years old (the beginning of the bronze age). He was carrying materials for making fire with sparks.

So lets practise both, nay all methods!

 

[Toddy]

There's a problem with that assumption.
We have a temperate climate; that means that unless preserved in very specific conditions, anything organic rots.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence............we have no idea if the firedrill was used or not
What we do know is that the minerals used to create sparks, (flint and pyrites) are incredibly well preserved in the archaeological record compared to wooden artifacts.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[TomBartlett]

I'm waiting for the discovery of a neolithic bic lighter to justify my inability to start a fire any other way.

 

[redneck]

There's a problem with that assumption.
We have a temperate climate; that means that unless preserved in very specific conditions, anything organic rots.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence............we have no idea if the firedrill was used or not
What we do know is that the minerals used to create sparks, (flint and pyrites) are incredibly well preserved in the archaeological record compared to wooden artifacts.

cheers,
Toddy

I agree in part with what you are saying but without organic materials being preserved we would not have a fossil record and that is found in many varied conditions, indeed even in countries where organic material would be seen to remain in a stable condition for millenia it seems that the sparking method is the earliest form of controlled fire lighting, I remain to be convinced that the mechanics or "enigine" of a bowdrill is earlier, it requires moving parts set to motion by a mechanical method, hand drill is an early method, yes, but bow drill?? definitely not compared to sparking methods.

 

[rik_uk3]

I believe it was flint all the way, sparks for lighting fires stayed with us for thousands of year really until the likes of matches came on the market.

Bow drills work fine in the hot dry bush but we are in the damp UK so I look upon them as a sort of bushcraft 'indulgence'; something practised for fun rather than a tool with any real UK history or relevance. Why would ancient man mess about when a bit of flint and dried fungi give him a fire fast.

 

[Pandabean]

There's a problem with that assumption.
We have a temperate climate; that means that unless preserved in very specific conditions, anything organic rots.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence

Thats got to be my favourite quote from studying archaeology & geology.

One example of not finding very much is Mesolithic Orkney, currently writing an essay on how farming arrived. There doesn't appear to be much there since these people were moving around alot and in some places stayed relatively close to the coast. On Orkney at this time Sea Levels were lower than what they are today so any coastal Mesolithic settlements are now under water. Though in recent years work has started to take place on looking at these underwater areas for any evidence of these peoples.

So it may be a case that we have not found that earlier evidence yet either from looking in the wrong place or not knowing what to look for.

Regarding preservation, I was on a field trip to NE England with my Geology course a few years back and there was fossilised burnt wood in rocks that were a few hundred millions of years old. Obviously not humans, it turned out that it may have been a forest fire probably caused by lightning storms as the rocks the wood was in had a flow direction suggesting water had a part to play in the deposition (or it could be Dinos having a go at bushcraft ). Slightly off topic but very interesting to think about.

 

[Toddy]

The Pitt-Rivers museum shows the evolution of a stick into everything from a spear to spindle.
It's a good drawing, and the bow is one end of one of the lines.

Bone preserves relatively well since it is dense and mineral rich; definitely preferentially preserved compared to wood.

Our woodland preservation is virtually all in anaerobic wetland conditions, in this country. From areas where dessication preservation is more usual, such as Egypt, we do find firebow sets. Indeed one was found in Tutankhamun's tomb.

From Scotland, since it's on my doorstep, we have no native flint around here at all, and the pyrites we do have has to be mined, or at best appears as tiny gold flecks in rocks.
We do have preserved hearthboards showing the burnt out holes of sufficient width to indicate firebows/spindles. See information from the Scottish Crannog Centre, Loch Tay, for instance.

Fire is a daily necessity. I suspect that the firedrill would have been the more ususal method in the earlier past tbh.

Interesting discussion though

cheers,
Toddy

 

[redneck]

The Pitt-Rivers museum shows the evolution of a stick into everything from a spear to spindle.
It's a good drawing, and the bow is one end of one of the lines.

Bone preserves relatively well since it is dense and mineral rich; definitely preferentially preserved compared to wood.

Our woodland preservation is virtually all in anaerobic wetland conditions, in this country. From areas where dessication preservation is more usual, such as Egypt, we do find firebow sets. Indeed one was found in Tutankhamun's tomb.

From Scotland, since it's on my doorstep, we have no native flint around here at all, and the pyrites we do have has to be mined, or at best appears as tiny gold flecks in rocks.
We do have preserved hearthboards showing the burnt out holes of sufficient width to indicate firebows/spindles. See information from the Scottish Crannog Centre, Loch Tay, for instance.

Fire is a daily necessity. I suspect that the firedrill would have been the more ususal method in the earlier past tbh.

Interesting discussion though

cheers,
Toddy

Interesting that Scotland has no flint, when 16 miles (from the nearest point) west is the Antrim coast where flint is in great abundance and even porcellenite (only place in the UK where it is found) was mined thousands of years ago and traded with dwellers in southern England as archaeological evidence shows, so I don't believe the absence of flint in scotland to be a real disadvantage, when it could easily have been traded with the inhabitants of Ulster..still, as you say an interesting discussion, but I still believe, sparks first, bow later.

 

[Tadpole]

Mans first house, was made of wood, mans first weapons were made of wood, mans first boats made of wood, mans first idols and gods were of wood. Man has had fire a long time, why is so hard to think that he waited ‘till the stone age to make fire, when he ancient man , was experienced and master of all things wood, he would know that if you rubbed wood against skin then the friction would cause heat, I’m sure that some kind of friction fire lighting with wood was going on long before the mastery of stone.

 

[gregorach]

I guess it depends on whether you're coming at it from a paleo-re-enactment view or a "survival" view...

 

[Pandabean]

We do have flint up this way:

http://www.aberdeenshire.gov.uk/archaeology/special/flint.asp

 

[Celt_Ginger]

Mans first house, was made of wood, mans first weapons were made of wood, mans first boats made of wood, mans first idols and gods were of wood. Man has had fire a long time, why is so hard to think that he waited ‘till the stone age to make fire, when he ancient man , was experienced and master of all things wood, he would know that if you rubbed wood against skin then the friction would cause heat, I’m sure that some kind of friction fire lighting with wood was going on long before the mastery of stone.

Perhaps his first house was a cave?
Perhaps his first weapon was a stone
Perhaps his first boat was of reeds
Perhaps his God was the Sun.
Perhaps Wikipedia has the answer.? Or perhaps not. there's so many variables. I guess we'll never know for sure.

 

[Tadpole]

Perhaps his first house was a cave?
Perhaps his first weapon was a stone
Perhaps his first boat was of reeds
Perhaps his God was the Sun.
Perhaps Wikipedia has the answer.? Or perhaps not. there's so many variables. I guess we'll never know for sure.

Not that many caves on the savannah of Africa, we left the trees from where we evolved and lived long, before we slept in caves.
A branch is a better weapon than a stone and like the SAK is a multi tool, spear, club, throwing stick and firewood all in one
First boat would have been some kind of log, so wood
Try carving a sun on a stone with a bit of flint, not easy. But carve a sun on a bit of wood and worship that. All within the bounds of possibility.
Google came first,
Just because we don’t know and will never know for sure, there is no reason not to ask the questions.

 

[Celt_Ginger]

Not that many caves on the savannah of Africa, we left the trees from where we evolved and lived long, before we slept in caves.
A branch is a better weapon than a stone and like the SAK is a multi tool, spear, club, throwing stick and firewood all in one
First boat would have been some kind of log, so wood
Try carving a sun on a stone with a bit of flint, not easy. But carve a sun on a bit of wood and worship that. All within the bounds of possibility.
Google came first,
Just because we don’t know and will never know for sure, there is no reason not to ask the questions.

We're not talking about Africa though. (read the OP)
Why is a branch better than a stone? Stones are easy to gather and need no processing.
OK, I'll concede about the boat in all probability
Would early mad have carved anything to use as an idol? He could have just looked up, and why would he use flint to carve in stone when other materials are better suited.

There's all sorts of "What Ifs" and we're only splitting hairs here.
Redneck's original post does raise the question about the emphasis placed on the Bow drill in Bushcraft. Many Bushcraft schools spend a lot of time teaching beginners this technique. Perhaps an equal emphasis should be put on Spark techniques and all that goes with that, such as processing natural tinders etc.

 

[Tadpole]

We're not talking about Africa though. (read the OP)
Why is a branch better than a stone? Stones are easy to gather and need no processing.
OK, I'll concede about the boat in all probability
Would early mad have carved anything to use as an idol? He could have just looked up, and why would he use flint to carve in stone when other materials are better suited.

There's all sorts of "What Ifs" and we're only splitting hairs here.
Redneck's original post does raise the question about the emphasis placed on the Bow drill in Bushcraft. Many Bushcraft schools spend a lot of time teaching beginners this technique. Perhaps an equal emphasis should be put on Spark techniques and all that goes with that, such as processing natural tinders etc.

I was, in my first post in this thread, commenting on the fact that man was in the Wooden age long before he was in the stone age. So it was natural that he would use some kind of wooden device to make fire before the ease of flint (which has to be processed before it can be used successfully) made that technique (what ever it was) obsolete. Just as flint and steel made the flint and Iron pyrites obsolete.
A branch is lighter to carry, has more than one use, and extend the reach when used as both weapon and tool, logic says if you want to kill someone/thing advantage is gained by doing so out of reach of the thing you are trying to kill, a branch gives you that advantage, where as a stone is going to put you in the danger zone, the “kill or be killed” area.
As for idols, nearly every civilisations have made representations of the things that they worship, be it the sun, or mother earth, carved/decorated in mud, wood, tusk or bone or just painted on the wall of the cave. Wooden ones do not tend to survive but clay and limestone carving have been dated to 27000BCE I can not see ancient man not making his idols in wood in idle moments, as a way of worshipping the gods when they are not visible.

 

[Celt_Ginger]

Yawn............ Here we go..........
I'm not going there.

 

[Peat]

I think people are underestimating the technical abilities of our ancestors. The earliest remains of a bow are from the Stellmoor bows in Northern Germany c.10000 years old! I think using the bow to rotate a drill may well have come soon after this.

I am frustrated with myself, as I did a lot of research into prehistoric stone drilling techniques, which included using a bow drill, and these perforated stones provides hard, well preserved evidence of its use, but I can not find any of my research or remember any of the key dates. Grrrr!

 

[andy_e]

Interesting discussion indeed, as for the question of which was the earliest form in the UK, I'd look at Europe during the last ice-age and see if we can determine what was being used there.

I'd expect to find that both methods, friction and spark, lived quite happily side by side at the time that the UK was being re(?)-populated. Flint and iron would be valuable materials and while precious, easily lost and less easy to replace as you move north. There are a couple of places in Scotland where you have flint, though there are alternatives, quartz is good enough if you can avoid the crumbly sort. But what do you do if you've lost your flint or your iron? Perhaps you resort to slightly the more time intensive but tried and tested friction techniques.

The hand-drill and bow-drill work just fine even up here in Scotland and a practiced hand can get fire in about 30 seconds with a good bowdrill set.

The other thing to consider is how often do you need to light a fire? We know that you can carry a perpetual ember in fungus or fire-cigars from one camp to the other and if you're making sure your main fire never goes out until you're ready to move on, perhaps re-lighting a fire itself is the more modern problem.

 

[Tadpole]

Yawn............ Here we go..........
I'm not going there.

Not sure what that means, or what it brings to this discussion?