Tinder Fungus as Fire-Starting Material

People used tinder fungi, including Fomes fomentarius, to make fire at least in prehistoric times. The fungus’s soft inner layer could be processed into amadou, a fibrous material that catches a spark and smoulders, helping ignite kindling. Archaeological finds support the use of fungi as tinder, but do not by themselves prove that people routinely carried embers between camps in this way. The illustration is a synthetic AI reconstruction.