ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2019
Birch tar production does not prove Neanderthal behavioral complexity.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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22 citing papers in PubMed.
- An archaeo-metabolomics approach for identifying cedar tar in archaeological samples: differentiating plant products and production processes.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Towards robust identification of Pleistocene adhesives: a critical review of current analytical approaches.Analytical and bioanalytical chemistry · 2026Review
- Antibacterial properties of experimentally produced birch tar and its medicinal affordances in the Pleistocene.PloS one · 2026Article
- Neandertal Cold Adaptation: Technological, Anatomical, and Physiological Responses to Cold Stress in One of Our Closest Fossil Relatives.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Art beyond cognition: reframing Neanderthal art through social connectivity and cultural transmission.Evolutionary human sciences · 2025Article
- Problems with two recent Petri net analyses of Neanderthal adhesive technology.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Reply to: Problems with two recent Petri net analyses of Neanderthal adhesive technology.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Differences in birch tar composition are explained by adhesive function in the central European Iron Age.PloS one · 2024Article
- Measuring ancient technological complexity and its cognitive implications using Petri nets.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Scaling Palaeolithic tar production processes exponentially increases behavioural complexity.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Reply to Paul R.B. Kozowyk: Interpreting the complexity of archaeological adhesives may lead to misconceptions about early humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- ArchaeologicalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Production method of the Königsaue birch tar documents cumulative culture in Neanderthals.Archaeological and anthropological sciences · 2023Article
- Archaeological evidence for thinking about possibilities in hominin evolution.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Review
- Archaeological adhesives made fromProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Human cumulative culture and the exploitation of natural phenomena.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- A new method for birch tar making with materials available in the Stone Age.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- High-resolution sediment analysis reveals Middle Bronze Age byre-houses at the site of Oppeano (Verona province, NE Italy).PloS one · 2022Article
- Biodegradability of Novel Polylactide and Polycaprolactone Materials with Bacteriostatic Properties Due to Embedded Birch Tar in Different Environments.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Article
- Reply to Schmidt et al.: Interpretation of Paleolithic adhesive production: Combining experimental and paleoenvironmental information.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2020Article
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8 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Birch tar production by Neanderthals-used for hafting tools-has been interpreted as one of the earliest manifestations of modern cultural behavior. This is because birch tar production per se was assumed to require a cognitively demanding setup, in which birch bark is heated in anaerobic conditions, a setup whose inherent complexity was thought to require modern levels of cognition and cultural transmission. Here we demonstrate that recognizable amounts of birch tar were likely a relatively frequent byproduct of burning birch bark (a natural tinder) under common, i.e., aerobic, conditions. We show that when birch bark burns close to a vertical to subvertical hard surface, such as an adjacent stone, birch tar is naturally deposited and can be easily scraped off the surface. The burning of birch bark near suitable surfaces provides useable quantities of birch tar in a single work session (3 h; including birch bark procurement). Chemical analysis of the resulting tar showed typical markers present in archaeological tar. Mechanical tests verify the tar's suitability for hafting and for hafted tools use. Given that similarly sized stones as in our experiment are frequently found in archaeological contexts associated with Neanderthals, the cognitively undemanding connection between burning birch bark and the production of birch tar would have been readily discoverable multiple times. Thus, the presence of birch tar alone cannot indicate the presence of modern cognition and/or cultural behaviors in Neanderthals.
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