High-tech in the middle Palaeolithic: Neandertal-manufactured pitch identified

Abstract

Any new knowledge that goes beyond the stone tools and techniques used in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic is most significant as it reveals the cultural and technical capabilities of the people living in these periods. In 1963, two pitch finds were discovered in a lignite open-mining pit in the northern foothills of the Harz Mountains, in a layer the geological age of which was dated as being older than 80,000 years. The great significance of these finds was therefore immediately apparent. One of the finds showed a fingerprint as well as the imprints of a flint stone tool and the structure of wood cells. This was indicative of the pitch piece having served as an adhesive to secure a wooden haft to a flint stone blade.Over 30 years later these finds were transferred to the Doerner Institut for investigation. The GC and GC/MS analyses revealed that, in both cases, birch pitches, well-known historical adhesives, had been used. These consist predominantly of pentacyclic triterpenoid components of the lupane type, with betulin forming the major component. The comparison with birch bark extracts showed that the biological peak profile (bio-marker) was surprisingly well preserved in these pitch finds and that hardly any degradation products were present.Today, comparable pitches can easily be produced with modern technical methods, i.e. using airtight laboratory flasks and temperature control facilities. However, any attempt at simulating the conditions of the Neandertal period and at producing these birch pitches without any of these modern facilities will soon be met with many difficulties. This implies that the Neandertals did not come across these pitches by accident but must have produced them with intent. Conscious action is, however, always a clear sign of considerable technical capabilities.

The Emergence of Ornaments and Art: An Archaeological Perspective on the Origins of “Behavioral Modernity”

“…The German site of Königsaue, for instance, yielded unique evidence for the mastering of complex fire technology by Micoquian (late Middle Paleolithic) Neandertals. Chemical analysis of two fragments of birch bark pitch used for the hafting of stone knives and directly dated to > 44 ka 14 C BP showed that the pitch had been produced through a severalhour-long smoldering process requiring a strict manufacture protocol, i.e., under exclusion of oxygen and at tightly controlled temperatures (between 340 and 400 • C) (Koller et al, 2001). The Königsaue pitch is the first artificial raw material in the history of humankind, and this unique example of Pleistocene high-tech clearly could not have been developed, transmitted, and maintained in the absence of abstract thinking and language as we know them; it certainly requires the enhanced working memory whose acquisition, according to Coolidge and Wynn (2005), is the hallmark of modern cognition.…”

Processing ochre in the Middle Stone Age: Testing the inference of prehistoric behaviours from actualistically derived experimental data

“…But they do not confirm that red ochre functioned exclusively in symbolic contexts, and do not explain how the symbolic use of ochre arose (d 'Errico et al, 2010, p. 4). The exploitation of ochre of variable colour and geological origin is not limited to H. sapiens (see for example Koller et al, 2001;Grünberg, 2002;Soressi and d'Errico, 2007;Zilhão et al, 2010 for ochre exploitation by H. neanderthalensis) and its use does not reflect a 'quantum leap' from archaic to 'modern' patterns of behaviour (Conard, 2005, p. 310). The habitual exploitation of red ochres (see Watts (2002Watts ( , 2009) for detailed explanations) may however represent a species-specific behavioural trait for H. sapiens (Henshilwood et al, 2009, p. 3;Watts, 2010, p. 393).…”

Analytical pyrolysis with in situ thermally assisted derivatisation, Py(HMDS)-GC/MS, for the chemical characterization of archaeological birch bark tar

“…Usually analytical procedures based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry following solvent extraction and trimetylsilylation have been used to identify birch bark tar, owing to a series of characteristic triterpenoid markers with a lupane skeleton [4,[6][7][8]10,11,13,14]. Betulin and lupeol together with low amounts of lupenone, betulone and betulinic acid are known to be characteristic of birch bark [17][18][19][20][21].…”

“…Tar from Betulaceae bark has been found on arrowheads and flint tools from the prehistoric age and the tar has been interpreted as a residue of the original adhesives [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. A chemical study of amorphous materials recovered from flint artefacts found in Campitello (Arezzo, Italy) revealed that birch bark tar was already being produced in the early-Palaeolithic period, and this represents the oldest finding of birch bark tar known until now [9,12].…”