Birth of the sticky: how neanderthals made glue.
September 2, 2017 8:36 AM Subscribe
Glue is at least 200,000 years old. That's before ceramic pottery existed to make it in. So how did humanish folks that far back do it? A team from the University of Leiden decided to take a crack at making their own batch of Neanderthal tar. Working with the resources available to Neanderthals, experimental archaeologists figured out ways to create useable amounts of tar from birch-bark—no sophisticated ceramic pots or controlled temperatures needed.
As far back as 200,000 years ago Neanderthals were using a tar-based adhesive to glue axe heads and spears to their handles. Now, reports Jen Viegas at Seeker, researchers have attempted to recreate the Neander-glue, which could help scientists figure out just how technologically sophisticated the species was.
Archaeologists have found lumps of adhesive tar likely made from birch bark at Neanderthal sites in Italy and Germany. But just how they made the substance puzzled researchers, especially because they did it without the aid of ceramic pots, which were used by later cultures to produce large quantities of tar.
A team from the University of Leiden decided to take a crack at making their own batch of Neanderthal tar. Working with the resources available to Neanderthals, experimental archaeologists figured out ways to create useable amounts of tar from birch-bark—no sophisticated ceramic pots or controlled temperatures needed.
I don't think of Ceramics as advanced... especially after watching the guy on the "Primitive Technology" Youtube channel make a house with a tile roof, from scratch.
posted by MikeWarot at 9:16 AM on September 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by MikeWarot at 9:16 AM on September 2, 2017 [2 favorites]
I think the reason pottery making is considered advanced is that it wasn't a major industry until the development of agriculture allowed/required people to settle in one place and accumulate possessions. Pottery is really heavy and fragile, not ideal for a nomadic lifestyle.
posted by Botanizer at 9:41 AM on September 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by Botanizer at 9:41 AM on September 2, 2017 [6 favorites]
Makes you wonder who's smarter: the Neanderthals who made their tar-glue 200,000 years ago, vs. a bunch of experimental archaeologists who got to skip the step with the Neanderthals' original "hey guys, look what we can do with this birch bark!" we-can-make-glue brainstorm.
posted by easily confused at 9:42 AM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by easily confused at 9:42 AM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
I don't think of Ceramics as advanced...
I think the reason pottery making is considered advanced
Ceramics is an 'advanced' technology because it's very hard to invent for the first time. In order to produce usable ceramic objects, out of the idea of clay riverbanks hardening in the sun, you have to make a pretty huge conceptual leap plus a lot of refinement to figure out the right process.
Stone axes, spears, are much easier to invent out of materials produced by nature. When you don't already know that something is possible, it's really hard to imagine.
posted by it's FuriOsa, not FurioSA at 9:50 AM on September 2, 2017 [10 favorites]
I think the reason pottery making is considered advanced
Ceramics is an 'advanced' technology because it's very hard to invent for the first time. In order to produce usable ceramic objects, out of the idea of clay riverbanks hardening in the sun, you have to make a pretty huge conceptual leap plus a lot of refinement to figure out the right process.
Stone axes, spears, are much easier to invent out of materials produced by nature. When you don't already know that something is possible, it's really hard to imagine.
posted by it's FuriOsa, not FurioSA at 9:50 AM on September 2, 2017 [10 favorites]
The Navajo make pitch pots, which are baskets dipped in pine or juniper pitch, to waterproof. These pots could have easily left the geologic record, consumed in fire or rot. Here is an image.
posted by Oyéah at 10:54 AM on September 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 10:54 AM on September 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
Birch is a really interesting tree, so I'm kind-of chuffed that that's where the glue is from, though god only knows why. Every time new evidence comes out that Neanderthals were intelligent in ways we just didn't credit them with my heart grows two sizes. I love them as a hominid- they had very little functional sexual dimorphism for one thing, like all hominids females were a tad smaller and less robust than males, but fossil evidence of healed breaks in bone show that probably all available Neanderthals hunted, down to the man, woman and large enough child. Everyone together.
Might be what led to their being overtaken by sapiens however, as we know now that we are steering anthropology out of the sexist past, the vast majority of calories came from gathering not hunting. The egalitarian hunting Neanderthal might have been outcompeted by their smaller more plant centric cousins. But at least some of them remains in us, at least if you are of European or middle eastern descent. We remain. Glue making skills and all.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:05 PM on September 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
Might be what led to their being overtaken by sapiens however, as we know now that we are steering anthropology out of the sexist past, the vast majority of calories came from gathering not hunting. The egalitarian hunting Neanderthal might have been outcompeted by their smaller more plant centric cousins. But at least some of them remains in us, at least if you are of European or middle eastern descent. We remain. Glue making skills and all.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 3:05 PM on September 2, 2017 [5 favorites]
Neanderthal glue is really sticky:
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:30 PM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
scientists rolled birch bark into a tight bundle and then heaped ashes and embers over it, causing a tar to form. They then had to be scraped off the bark.
posted by Joe in Australia at 4:30 PM on September 2, 2017 [1 favorite]
MikeWarot: "I don't think of Ceramics as advanced... especially after watching the guy on the "Primitive Technology" Youtube channel make a house with a tile roof, from scratch."
Lots of things are simple once one knows it can be done. EG: it's hard to imagine a simpler cloth making tool than a crochet hook but crocheting was probably invented in the last 1000 years.
posted by Mitheral at 9:03 PM on September 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
Lots of things are simple once one knows it can be done. EG: it's hard to imagine a simpler cloth making tool than a crochet hook but crocheting was probably invented in the last 1000 years.
posted by Mitheral at 9:03 PM on September 2, 2017 [4 favorites]
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posted by MexicanYenta at 9:02 AM on September 2, 2017 [3 favorites]