The University of Seville reports an interesting Neanderthal find. Like all ancient cultures, Neanderthals made glues, resins, and pitches out of various plants. There are two ways of doing that. Birch bark can be burned in the open air to release resin but that is not very productive.
However, if oxygen is restricted by burying the heated wood, the wood exudes the resin without burning. The researchers think that the use of the second method shows more intelligence than the use of the first: "Whether they used one method or the other has major implications for rating their cognitive ability. The more complex method requires a significant degree of organisation and practice."
It turns out that some Neanderthals used the second method:
A scientific study, involving the University of Seville, has for the first time described a structure compatible with theoretical studies of anoxic heating.
The structure looks like a simple pit, and this simplicity may be why this structure has not been identified.
Only through a multitude of analyses and the collaboration of a multidisciplinary team has it been possible to demonstrate its use as an anoxic heating chamber.
The discovery was made in Vanguard Cave (Gibraltar, UK), part of the 'Gorham's Caves Complex,' which has been recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016.
From the video: Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar National Museum and one of the paper's authors: "Another nail in the coffin for those who felt that the Neanderthal were just brutish apes and so on, not comparable to us..."
Indeed. Finlayson and colleagues have also made other recent discoveries that shed light on Neanderthal lifestyles:
In 2012, Finlayson's team found a strange hashtag-like mark on a piece of limestone, which has [been] interpreted by some experts as a sign of primitive art.
They collected feathers, but only black ones, from a wide variety of birds, possibly for aesthetic or ceremonial purposes.
"They used medicinal plants, buried their dead, made jewelry and specialist tools, as well as ochre and other pigments, perhaps to paint their faces or bodies. "
Neanderthal tools from the Le Moustier site in France, used during the Middle Palaeolithic period (about 40,000 years ago), also show that some thought went into the production process. According to researchers at New York University,
Neanderthals created stone tools held together by a multi-component adhesive, a team of scientists has discovered. Its findings, which are the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, suggest these predecessors to modern humans had a higher level of cognition and cultural development than previously thought.
"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," says Radu Iovita, an associate professor at NYU's Center for the Study of Human Origins.
The Neanderthal tools must have been fairly efficient because bones found at Abric Pizarro on Spain's Iberian Peninsula from 65,000 and 100,000 years ago show that they ate a large variety of animals:
"Our surprising findings at Abric Pizarro show how adaptable Neanderthals were," says zooarchaeologist Sofia Samper Carro of the Australian National University.
"The animal bones we have recovered indicate that they were successfully exploiting the surrounding fauna, hunting red deer, horses and bison, but also eating freshwater turtles and rabbits, which imply a degree of planning rarely considered for Neanderthals."
Another animal that Neanderthals hunted was the now-extinct cave lion:
The new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, outlines how a research team detected a toe bone with a cut mark among the remains of the cave lion. This led to the team determining that Neanderthals removed the lion's pelt with the claws attached, indicating that they used the skin for their own purposes.
But the bones found at Einhornhöhle did not provide any direct evidence for hunting. In order to contextualize the finding, lead author Gabriele Russo, of Universität Tübingen in Germany, analyzed the remains of a cave lion found by a teenager from Siegsdorf in Bavaria. A closer inspection by Russo of the skeleton led to the detection of some unusual damage on a rib. Working together with archaeologist Dr. Annemieke Milks, of the University of Reading, the damage was identified as a weapon impact.
The figurine shown in the video is thought to date from about 32,000 years ago and is not attributed to Neanderthals, who did not exist as a separate group by then. But in any event, he who aims at a cave lion had better not miss.
Paleontologist Günter Bechly noted recently that many lines of evidence point to a fully human nature for Neanderthal man. That, of course, means that the very ancient people we know the most about can't be the missing link that many paleontologists are looking for. Of course, if the human mind has no history, there probably is no missing link.