In addition to hunting cave lions, creating art, cooking crabs, and potentially being the ultimate morning people, Neanderthals in what is now Europe also used their own kind of glue. A study published February 21 in the journal Science Advances finds that their stone tools were held together by a multi-component adhesive. This is the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive used by Neanderthals on the European continent. It also adds more evidence to the theory that these extinct human predecessors had a higher level of cognition and cultural development than scientists previously thought.
[Related: Sensitive to pain? It could be your Neanderthal gene variants.]
In the study, an international team of researchers re-examined tools that were first discovered in the early 20th century at the Le Moustier archaeological site in France. The tools date back about 120,000 and 40,000 years ago, during the Middle Palaeolithic era or Old Stone Age.
“These astonishingly well-preserved tools showcase a technical solution broadly similar to examples of tools made by early modern humans in Africa, but the exact recipe reflects a Neanderthal ‘spin,’ which is the production of grips for handheld tools,” study co-author and New York University anthropologist Radu Iovita, said in a statement.
The tools were individually wrapped in the 1960s, preserving the organic substances in the very old glue. Researchers found traces of a mixture of ochre and bitumen on several scrapers, flakes, and blades. Ochre is a naturally occurring earth pigment that can be pale yellow, red, brown, and violet. Bitumen naturally occurs in soil and is a component of asphalt that can be made from crude oil. In the Le Moustier region, bitumen, and ochre would have had to be collected from distant locations. According to the authors, this would have meant a lot of time, effort, planning, and a targeted approach.
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