The first men arrived in Europe on the Mediterranean shores 1.5 million years ago at a time when clues indicate that they already knew the use of fire.
But it is only 400,000 years ago that its domestication was established thanks to the discovery of a few homes in the world, including the Terra Amata deposit.
At that time the sea level was higher and the site of Terra Amata was at the edge of a marine beach, at the foot of the current Mont Boron in Nice.
The remains, discovered during the construction of a building, were preserved on the spot in the entrance hall in a museum built for this purpose.
Post holes and the many found objects, including bifaces typical of the Acheulean culture, indicate that it was a camp of hunters mastering the fire, as evidenced by the fossilized ashes that came to us and what had to to be a small wall of protection.
It was probably a group of Homo Erectus , one of the human species identified with Homo Heidelbergensis (parent of Homo Neanderthalis ) as present in Europe during this period, well before the arrival of Homo Sapiens more than 300,000 years after Terra Amata.
