France, Dec. 12 -- 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.

A team led by the British Museum identified a distinctive patch of baked clay, flint hand axes fractured by extreme heat, and two fragments of iron pyrite - a mineral that produces sparks when struck against flint.

Together, the clues point ...