I have previously commented on the rather bizarre jewish attempt to claim they ‘invented fire’ by the ‘Times of Israel’ in 2022 (1) and now we’ve seen a fresh attempt to imply the same once again by the same publication with Rossella Tercatin trying to claim by implication that ‘prehistoric Israelis’ were in fact the originators of fire – or at least grilling – when she writes how:
‘Almost 800,000 years ago, early humans living in the area of northern Israel were likely collecting driftwood from the ancient predecessor of the Hula Lake to regularly fuel fires, according to a new study published in the June 2026 issue of the Quaternary Science Reviews journal. The research suggests that early inhabitants of the area knew how to use environmental resources more efficiently and with greater sophistication than previously thought.
Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, one of the study’s authors, explained that for the first time, the team of Israeli and international scholars identified a large number of charcoal fragments at Gesher Benot Ya’akov, a rare find at an ancient site.
Gesher Benot Ya’akov offers the earliest evidence for the use of controlled fire outside Africa.
“Gesher Benot Ya’akov is the only site [from this period] with secure evidence of fire,” she told The Times of Israel over the telephone.
“In the past, we had identified fish teeth that had been exposed to heat, indicating that the fish was cooked, and also clusters of burnt flint fragments,” she added. “Now we have charcoals, so we have three lines of evidence.”
Asked whether fire had been used for purposes other than cooking, Goren-Inbar said it is probable, but the researchers have not identified any direct evidence of it.
Gesher Benot Ya’akov has been excavated for several decades. The site has been dated using the Earth’s magnetic field — a constantly shifting invisible shield stemming from magnetic ore in the Earth’s core. Archaeologists found evidence testifying to the shift that occurred around 780,000 years ago.
They also identified some 20 archaeological layers, indicating that early humans had returned to Gesher Benot Ya’akov continuously for approximately 100,000 years. The site is considered an example of the Acheulean culture, based on the shapes of stone tools unearthed there.
According to Goren-Inbar, finding charcoal from such a long time ago is very rare.
“In sites that ancient, you don’t usually find charcoal, but our site is very unique because it is a wet site,” Goren-Inbar said.
Charcoal normally deteriorates over time, but in this case, the sediments of the ancient lake helped preserve it.’ (2)
This frankly adds nothing new to the actual claim but does try to claim it was ‘prehistoric Israelis’ doing it which is just nonsense as I have explained in my original response to this absurd claim as follows:
‘The key to understanding this is twofold.
Firstly, we need to understand the earliest known use of fire by humans has been dated to circa a million years ago at Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa’s north cape while we have suggestive evidence – although this has not been confirmed as fire – at Chesowanja in Kenya’s rift valley dated to circa 1.4 million years ago.
So thus, even if we have evidence of the use of a cooking fire in what is now Israel circa 800,000 years ago or even a million years ago then it wouldn’t be the first cooking fire we know of archaeologically-speaking nor would it per se indicate that the first cooking fire occurred in what is now Israel just that the first one of which we have evidence comes from what is now Israel.
These are not the same things.
Secondly and similarly, we need to understand that even if evidence of the first ever cooking fire ever was found in Israel it doesn’t mean that jews – or their ancestors – are responsible for having performed it precisely because the historic population of what is now Israel has actually – to the chagrin of many jewish nationalists – been largely non-jewish and a mix of local Semite (for example the Canaanites/Phoenicians) and Indo-European invaders from the north (the Hittites) and the west (the Sea Peoples aka the Mycenaeans who then became the Philistines).
The area where these fires have been found have not been the old jewish homeland – essentially what was called Judea – but rather much further north close to where we know the Canaanites/Phoenicians mixed with the Hittites as well as some Philistines who settled there.
Thus, we can see that contrary to some interpretations of the evidence: the jews didn’t ‘invent’ fire either.’ (3)
References
(1) On this see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-fire
(2) https://www.timesofisrael.com/rare-ancient-charcoal-shows-how-prehistoric-israelis-were-already-grilling-780000-years-ago/
(3) This is from my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/jewish-invention-myths-fire
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