ArticleScientific reports2022
A new method for birch tar making with materials available in the Stone Age.
Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- An archaeo-metabolomics approach for identifying cedar tar in archaeological samples: differentiating plant products and production processes.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Use it or lose it: A model-based assessment of the hypothesis that European Neanderthals relied on wildfires to create their campfires.Open research Europe · 2025Article
- 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
- Identifying Palaeolithic birch tar production techniques: challenges from an experimental biomolecular approach.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
- Production method of the Königsaue birch tar documents cumulative culture in Neanderthals.Archaeological and anthropological sciences · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The use of birch tar can be traced back to the European Middle Palaeolithic and is relevant for our understanding of the technical skills and cognitive abilities of Neanderthals. Due to the lack of archaeological evidence, it remains unknown what techniques were used for birch tar making. Efficiency was recently used as a proxy to determine the method most likely used in the Middle Palaeolithic. Todtenhaupt et al. have proposed a technique employing a groove-like structure that is comparable with the recently presented condensation method. The groove method resulted in higher tar yields compared to other experimental aceramic production processes. However, the implications for Palaeolithic tar making remain unclear because some of the materials used in the experiment were not available then (polished granite slabs). To approach this problem, we replicated the groove with river cobbles and, in a second experiment with flint fragments, to evaluate whether similar results can be obtained. We were successful in producing birch tar in multiple runs with the cobble- and flint-grooves, which, in addition, proved to be more efficient than the condensation method in terms of tar yield per bark input. Our experimental study provides an additional possibility to make prehistoric birch tar.
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