#Neanderthal glue points to complex thinking

The stone tools were unearthed around 1910 at a French archaeological site called #LeMoustier that scientists believe Neanderthals used between 120,000 and 40,000 years ago. Since the 1960s, the tools had been untouched and individually wrapped at the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in Berlin.

By Katie Hunt, CNN
Published Feb 26, 2024

"The researchers were initially surprised to find traces of #ocher, as it reduces the stickiness of #bitumen. However, when they made their own version of the glue, using bitumen from a bituminous lake in the France’s Massif Central and ocher from Italy, the reason became clear.

"Their study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, found that the makers of the stone tools used the adhesive to mold a handle rather than haft the tool to wood.

"'The bitumen there is very sticky and makes everything on you unusable if it touches the bitumen. Everything on you is sticky with black stains and it smells. But if you mix in high ochre loads, what you get is a viscous mass that can actually be touched and used as handles,' Schmidt said via email."

https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/neanderthal-glue-points-to-complex-thinking/1625440

#AncientTools #Archaeology

Sticky stones 🪨

Re-examining 40,000 y/o #StoneTools from #LeMoustier, France, stored here in Berlin's Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte, P. Schmidt et al. could trace back #Neanderthal glue made from ochre & bitumen, as they report in Science Advances 10(8), 2024:

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adl0822