Dissertation
Footprints of Fire
Understanding the formation and preservation of Pleistocene fire traces through laboratory-based experimental research
- Author
- Reidsma, F.H.
- Date
- 12 February 2025
- Links
- Scholarly Publications repository
The origins of fire use is a major research theme within Pleistocene archaeology due to the potential role of fire in many aspects of human evolution. This thesis argues that the impact of fire use cannot be properly understood without considering the chemical processes that shape the archaeological fire record (i.e. fire and diagenesis). The best way to do this is through a fundamental research approach (i.e., science aimed at understanding natural phenomena), where those processes are broken down into individual measurable variables. The thesis takes one specific fire proxy, heated bone, as a starting point to explore those processes and build a formal strategy for the study of Pleistocene fire evidence. It examines the effect of fire (heat) and diagenesis (pH conditions) on the physical and chemical properties of bone through a series of controlled laboratory experiments. This is done to 1) provide a more comprehensive understanding of the formation and preservation of heated bone as a fire proxy, and 2) build an analytical toolkit and reference datasets to identify and reconstruct the characteristics of ancient fire more adequately. The controlled nature of the experiments makes the work relevant to both archaeology and other fields that deal with heated bone. The technical results of the core chapters (three peer-reviewed papers) are contextualised within the complexity of real-world scenarios and key aspects of the debates surrounding the origins, nature, and universality of Pleistocene fire use.