France, Dec. 12 -- how New research suggests deliberate fire-setting took place in what is now eastern England around 400,000 years ago, pushing back the earliest known date for controlled fire-making by roughly 350,000 years.

Until now, the oldest confirmed evidence had come from Neanderthal sites in northern France dating to about 50,000 years ago.

The findings, published in the journal Nature, centre on the Paleolithic site of Barnham in Suffolk, which has been excavated intermittently for decades.

This time, however, researchers believe they have finally cracked one of archaeology's most enduring mysteries- when humans stopped depending on natural fires and learned to create flame whenever they needed it.

French cave findings sugg...