The first synthetic substance ever brewed on planet Earth may not have been a product of our own species, but was concocted by a close relative about 200,000 years ago.
Researchers from the University of Tübingen and the State Museum of Prehistory in Germany and the University of Strasbourg in France recently performed a complex chemical analysis on Neanderthal artifacts made with birch tar, concluding how it was extracted was not incidental.
Birch tar is a sticky black goo that has been used since ancient times for its various adhesive, water-repellent and even anti-microbial properties. Some of the first early humans to live in Europe used it to bind parts of their tools together.
The material can be extracted from birch bark using heat, but scientists disagree on whether Neanderthals purposefully produced the tar or whether it was simply a result of enjoying a warm fire.
Some think of black tar as a happy accident that Neanderthals simply scraped off surrounding rocks after burning birch bark. Others think the tacky, water-resistant material was carefully crafted in an underground oven long before our species learned the trick.
This may seem like a pedantic squabble, but the deliberate distillation of useful substances from raw materials is widely believed to be another activity that sets human intelligence apart from other species.
Based on the analysis of two pieces of birch tar found at an archaeological site in Germanythis latest study argues that “Berken tar can document advanced technology, foresight, and cultural capacity in Neanderthals.”
An analysis of the artifacts’ chemistry suggests that they were deprived of oxygen during their formation. This low-oxygen profile could theoretically be achieved in a few ways, so researchers tested the different methods.
Two of the methods burned birch bark above ground, while three methods involved some kind of underground furnace.
Burning birch bark above the ground allowed the tar to condense on the tops of open-air stones or a dome of sticks. The underground methods essentially involved burying rolled up birch bark under a fire.
In the end, only birch tar made underground bore the same chemical signature as the ancient artifacts found in Germany.
The findings to suggest Neanderthal tar is not the accidental “result of unintended processes in open-air fires,” but a complex subterranean technique that had to be carefully planned because it could not be controlled once buried.
Such a complex setup would have required a specific recipe to follow exactly. Researchers say the practice was likely invented through trial and error, with gradual improvements adding up over time.
If Neanderthals really were making tar as early as 200,000 years ago, that’s better than any evidence of it homo sapiens make tar with 100,000 years.
“So”, researchers to write“what we show here for the first time is that Neanderthals invented and refined a transformative technique, most likely independent of the influence of homo sapiens.”
Previous discoveries have shown that Neanderthals had complex diets with multiple food preparation steps. However, their use of fire may not have been limited to heating or cooking.
The intelligence of our former cousins should no longer be underestimated.
The study is published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.