Archaeologists have announced the discovery of a new type of Neanderthal hearth in Gibraltar’s Vanguard Cave. This hearth structure is consistent with predictions from theoretical studies that require the use of heating structures to obtain birch tar commonly used in hafting. Researchers suggest that this hearth was used to burn herbs and shrubs over guano mixed with sand and heat rockrose without oxygen.
Neanderthal hearth structures may have been constructed according to the following steps: Image credit: Ochando others., doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109025.
“The use and control of fire would have provided important adaptive benefits.” Homo and even shaped its evolution,” said Clive Finlayson of Gibraltar National Museum and colleagues.
“Manufacturing fire technology has been shown to be common from 400,000 years ago to the present, and it has probably been around for much longer.”
“A variety of studies have demonstrated the ability of Neanderthals to create, protect, and carry fire.”
“The main functions of the use of fire are related to providing heat, light and the possibility of cooking food.”
“But it could also lead to the development of new technological innovations,” they added.
“These include deliberate heat treatment of stone artifacts, durable wood, smoking purposes, and the use of distillation of birch bark and adhesives from coniferous resins to create stone flakes on wooden elements. This may include the production of hafting multi-component tools.”
“Other innovations by Neanderthals were the construction of pits and the diversification of the types of fuels used with a variety of commonly used plants, liquid hydrocarbons, and lignite.”
“However, plants are the most common type of fuel and are therefore expected to have been subject to a selection process by Neanderthals among available resources in the nearby, and perhaps even beyond, landscape.”
Special combustion structures discovered by the Vanguard Cave team have revealed previously unknown ways in which Neanderthals managed and used fire.
The structure is 68,000 to 61,000 years old and is adapted for steam distilling essential oils from rockrose to obtain tar, a hafting substance proven to have been used by Neanderthals.
The researchers tested that interpretation experimentally by building structures with similar morphological and compositional characteristics to those excavated in the cave.
Distilling a small bunch of young rockrose leaves in a closed, nearly anoxic environment for a reasonable period of time produces enough to hold two spearheads using only locally available tools and materials. of tar could be produced.
“Neanderthals had to go through a series of thought processes to choose which plants and find a way to extract the resin without burning them,” Dr Finlayson said.
“Our extinct cousins were not the brutal humans of the popular imagination,” said Dr. Fernando Muñiz, an archaeologist at the University of Seville.
“This human species has been shown to have cognitive abilities, as reflected in studies showing mastery of the industrial process of making resin as an adhesive for attaching stone points to spear handles. ”
This finding is reported in the following article: paper in a diary Quaternary Science Review.
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Juan Ochando others. 2024. Neanderthals' special combustion structure adapted to the acquisition of tar. Quaternary Science Review 346: 109025;doi: 10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.109025
Source: www.sci.news
