In the Dordogne, Neanderthal man was well equipped… intellectually – liberation

The more we learn about Neanderthal man, the more we marvel at his intelligence and his refinement. Our older cousin (appearing about 400,000 years ago and disappearing 30,000 years ago) has been around for a couple of centuries, probably carrying the image of a boorish prehistoric man since we were born. In the middle of the 19th century. Neanderthals are strong and stocky, with large browbones and a backward forehead. Yes, but Neanderthals depicted animals in caves. He buries his dead. Maybe he even plays the flute. And it makes super-sophisticated glue.

An international team of researchers discovered it when they removed five stone tools from a drawer, which were still coated with a sticky substance. Found in Mostier, a prehistoric site in the Dordogne known since 1860, they are attributed to Neanderthals and were made between 40,000 and 120,000 years before our time. d. But, buried in a mass of tools found at Mostier, they had never before been examined in detail. They were spotted during an internal review of the collection and their scientific interest was finally realized. “The objects had been individually wrapped and untouched since the 1960s. So the remains of adhesive organic matter were very well preserved,”

explains archaeologist Eva Dutkiewicz of Germany’s University of Täbingen, who co-directed the study published in late February. Science Advances.

A type of modeling clay

On these five stone chips, we see red and yellow markings on the sides. And on four out of five instruments, we get black, shiny and sometimes even thick residue. “The red and yellow stains were limited to only one part of the tools, creating a barrier effect that separated the stained part from the clean part.” Describe archaeologists in their study. They hypothesized that the stained half of the stone was previously covered with a protective cover for easier handling, while the clean half was the useful part of the stone. “These finds fuel the hypothesis that the Moustier artefacts were part of composite tools. They were assembled by gluing the handle or adhesive to the handle, or alternatively, as other Neanderthal archaeological examples show, the adhesive was molded onto the tools and served as the handle.”

In fact, it appears that the Neanderthals of Moustier developed a recipe for a type of modeling clay, with which they coated the undersides of their sharpening tools. Researchers from the University of Tübingen, the University of Strasbourg and the University of New York conducted experimental archeology to test their hypothesis. They tried to make this sticky paste with materials and tools available to Neanderthals: in this case, we are certain that the pigments found in Moustier are ocher… “yellow or red rock dust. The black residue appears to be natural bitumen. But to what extent?

“a humble bunch”

Patrick Schmidt, Tübingen’s prehistorian and co-director of the study, says that they “It was surprising to find that ocher made up more than 50% of the adhesive composition, because air-dried bitumen loses its adhesive properties when you add that much ocher.” We had to test other ways of doing things. “It was different when we used liquid bitumen, which is not really suitable for making glue. But if we add 55% ocher, it forms a crumbly mass.” Bingo. The paste recreated in this way in the 21st century is thick, sticky enough to hold well around the stone, but not stick to the skin of the hand that holds the tool.

Another clue suggests that Neanderthals actually used their stone shards this way: looking at them under a microscope, the five pieces studied show two very different types of wear. One is the classic erosion endured by a stone that acts as a tool, rubbing against other materials. It is like another form of clothing “A bright polish distributed over the entire surface of the piece which is supposed to be enclosed in the handle of the tool, and which is not present elsewhere on the stone. We interpret it as the result of abrasion of the ocher due to the movement of the tool within its handle.” Radu Iovita, a paleoanthropologist at New York University and co-author of the study, explains.

Strong glue for assembling tools

Besides the satisfaction of understanding how these tools were made and used, the study highlights the genius of Neanderthals. “The adhesives used in multi-component tools are the best material evidence of the cultural evolution and cognitive processes of early humans,”

Study recalls. Recipes based on ocher and slime were already known among the first Homo sapiens in Africa, who made a strong glue for assembling tools. But we didn’t know yet “Neanderthal Touch”, As Radu Iovita calls it, it involves inflating the ocher’s proportions. “The quantities are so large that they reduce the performance of the adhesive. (…) But when adhesives with high ocher content themselves functioned as handles on cutting tools—a behavior known to Neanderthals—they realized real benefits by improving strength and toughness,” Summarizes the study.

For Patrick Schmidt, “What our work shows is that the first Homo sapiens in Africa and the Neanderthals in Europe were similarly minded. Their adhesive technologies are equally important to our understanding of human evolution.”