• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

60,000-Year-Old Glue-Making Oven Found In Neanderthals’ Seaside Cave

November 20, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

At a well-known hangout of Neanderthals, archaeologists have uncovered a structure they believe was used to cook up a form of prehistoric glue.

The discovery was made in Vanguard Cave, part of Gorham’s Cave complex, in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. Located on the seafront overlooking the western Mediterranean, the caverns are thought to be one of the last known habitations of the Neanderthals in Europe before they drifted into extinction.

Advertisement

In a layer of sediment dated around 67,000 to 60,000 years old, the researchers uncovered a hearth structure that they say was “clearly” built by human hands.

With further work, they found evidence that the hearth was used to create birch tar, a gloopy substance that was used by prehistoric humans to attach a handle to a tool or weapon (known as hafting in the weaponsmith business).

Firstly, the structure was circular, featuring two channels and a thick wall lining, suggesting a more complex construction than a typical cooking fire pit. 

Secondly, the hearth was dotted with chemical traces that suggest the combustion of resinous plant material. This includes charred wood and microscopic ash fragments, as well as plant compounds that are often associated with the production of tar from birch bark and similar plants.

An illustration showing how the hearth structure may have been used to created birch tar.

An illustration showing how the hearth structure may have been used to created birch tar.

Image credit: J Ochando/Quaternary Science Reviews/2024 (CC BY 4.0)

The strands of evidence led the team to propose that the structure was used for heating a flowering plant, rockroses (Cistaceae), under anoxic conditions by burning herbs and shrubs. 

They even backed up their theory by building a similar structure and carrying out an experiment to see if they could cook up some birch tar. 

“Distilling a small bunch of young leaves of rockrose for a reasonable period of time in a closed and almost anoxic environment enabled to produce tar that was more than enough to haft two spearheads, using only tools and materials available in the area for the period in reference,” the study authors write. 

The process of crafting a gooey glue-like substance from raw ingredients, and then using it to enhance complex tools, could be seen as evidence for Neanderthals possessing a high level of intelligence. Some anthropologists have claimed it shows our sister species must have had some grasp of combustion and basic chemistry, not to mention a strong degree of cooperation and communication.

Advertisement

Contrary to the outdated stereotype of hunched-over brutes, Neanderthals were anything but dunces. Cave-loads of evidence now show their sharp intelligence, intricate cultural practices, and profound emotional depth.

It’s just a shame their glue-making skills couldn’t save them from extinction. 

The study is published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Cricket-Manchester test likely to be postponed after India COVID-19 case
  2. EU to attend U.S. trade meeting put in doubt by French anger
  3. Soccer-West Ham win again, Leicester and Napoli falter
  4. Was Jesus A Hallucinogenic Mushroom? One Scholar Certainly Thought So

Source Link: 60,000-Year-Old Glue-Making Oven Found In Neanderthals' Seaside Cave

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • Is The Weather Making Your Headache Worse?
  • “Zoning Out” Actually Helps You Learn? Data From Up To 90,000 Brain Cells Says So
  • Over Past 250,000 Years, Three Major Waves Of Human-Neanderthal Interbreeding Have Been Identified
  • Zebrafish “Catch” Yawns Just Like Us – We Might Need To Rethink Evolution To Account For That
  • 80,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Footprints Reveal How Children Hunted On Beaches
  • 5 Animals That Have Absolutely No Business Jumping (In Our Very Humble, Definitely Unbiased Opinion)
  • Polar Vortex Patterns Explain Winter Cold Snaps Against Background Warming Trend
  • Scientists Tracked An Olm For 2,569 Days And It Did Not Move An Inch
  • Look Out For “Fireballs”: The Best Meteor Shower Of 2025 Is About To Commence, According To NASA
  • Why Do Many Large Language Models Give The Same Answer To This “Random” Number Query?
  • Adidas Jabulani: The World Cup Football So Bad NASA Decided To Study It
  • Beluga Whales Shake Their Blob-Like Melons To Say Hello And Even Woo A Mate, But How?
  • Gravitational Wave Detected From Largest Black Hole Merger Yet: “It Presents A Real Challenge To Our Understanding Of Black Hole Formation”
  • At Over 100 Years Of Age, The World’s Oldest Elephant Passes Away In India
  • Ancient Human DNA Reveals Earliest Zoonotic Diseases Appeared 6,500 Years Ago
  • Boys Are Better At Math? That Could Be Because School Favors Them Over Girls
  • Looptail G: Most People Can’t Recognize A Letter You Have Seen Millions Of Times
  • 24-Million-Year-Old Protein Fragments Are Oldest Ever Recovered, A Robot Listened To Spoken Instructions And Performed Surgery, And Much More This Week
  • DNA From Greenland Sled Dogs – Maybe The World’s Oldest Breed – Reveals 1,000 Years Of Arctic History
  • Why Doesn’t Moonrise Shift By The Same Amount Each Night?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version