Neanderthals began to cook resin 100,000 years earlier than humans

In modern culture, the word "Neanderthal" is usually called someone very dark, poorly educated, rude, and in general, far from civilization. In fairness, scientists made a lot of efforts to form such an opinion: it is believed that Neanderthals are less successful and resourceful relatives of people who could not stand the competition with them and became extinct, freeing the Earth for only one dominant species. However, not everything is so simple, some believe that Neanderthals had a culture and development no worse than people, and in a sense they were even more progressive, they were just out of luck. Another evidence of this opinion is a recent discovery: it was the Neanderthals who first discovered the preparation of resin and glue 200 thousand years ago.

Paleolithic geniuses

Neanderthals are early members of the Homo genus from Europe and Asia. They differed in huge brain sizes, possessed complex societies and tools, and some of their achievements, for example, in leather industry, are still used. Many researchers even believe that Neanderthals did not actually disappear, but simply disappeared into the more common and powerful Homo sapiens. To this day, people of European and Asian descent find Neanderthal DNA.

In recent decades, resins and adhesive residues on stone tools have been increasingly found in Neanderthal habitats in Germany. Some anthropologists claim that glue production is a high-tech skill associated with anatomically modern humans, but new research not only confirms that Neanderthals invented the glue, but also explain how they probably achieved it.

The researchers suggested that there could be three ways that Neanderthals created the resin. The first two involved melting the resin over a piece of birch bark and laying out the hot coals on a birch bark above the pit in which the resin was located. The third method was the most difficult. For him, it was necessary to place a container of birch bark in a pit. Then, loose wood bark was placed on a lattice covering a pit. Researchers covered the bark with mud and lit a fire all over the mound. This technique, which required more wood, time and customization than other methods, produced the most resin.

Are people plagiarists?

Researchers believe that Neanderthals could use all three methods at different points in time, depending on the circumstances.

According to scientists, the earliest evidence of glue production by modern people was created about 70 thousand years ago. It is likely that Homo sapiens in Africa themselves figured out how to melt the resin. But scientists do not exclude the possibility that they spied on methods for producing resin from birch bark in Neanderthals.

In historical times, resin was used to waterproof boats, ships and containers, as well as to protect wooden buildings. But in the days of the Paleolithic such widespread use of resin is unlikely, because basically it strengthened the tips of the spears on the pole. Nevertheless, the very fact that Neanderthals knew this technology opens up new possibilities for the study and understanding of the younger brothers of modern people.