![]() ![]() This process leaves distinct mineral traces on the flint strike-a-lights that can be observed using a microscope. These sparks are directed onto easily flammable tinder materials which begin to smoulder once a spark has been ‘captured’. This work is primarily concerned with the stone-on-stone fire production system, so using pieces of flint as ‘strike-a-light’ tools to strike the mineral pyrite to produce sparks. My research focuses on fire use by Palaeolithic peoples, including the identification of ancient fire-making tools using experimental archaeology in combination with microwear analysis. More recently, I was awarded a Veni Innovational Research Incentives Scheme Grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Hi, there… my name is Andrew Sorensen, and I defended my PhD in Palaeolithic Archaeology and Material Culture Studies at the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology back in December 2018. ![]() ![]() Determining when and how fire entered our technological repertoire is key to understanding who we are as a species, and as a society. It is for this reason that the development of fire as an adaptive tool by humans is of such interest to us all. Without distant coal-fired power plants, internal combustion engines, furnaces and the like, life as we know it today could not exist. Yet fire remains the basis for the vast majority of our technology and comforts, despite being largely hidden away. ![]()
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