A Spark of Inspiration: Experimentally Testing Manganese Dioxide as a Fire Lighting Aide

Evidence for the production, use, and control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe ranges from the scale of ecosystems to microscopic alterations of artefacts. While there is a consensus that Neanderthals were skilled in the use of fire, there remains a dispute over whether they had mastered the ability to produce fire on demand. The unique discovery that Neanderthals may have been utilising manganese dioxide as an additional component to their fire starting toolkits has opened the possibility that they had a novel level of understanding of inorganic materials. This paper aims to experimentally test the proposal that manganese dioxide is effective at improving the fire lighting capacity of different tinder using an actual methodology. The results suggest that it may be of use in a certain concentration, but that manganese dioxide may also possess interesting visual properties when added to flammable materials.