Were Western European Neandertals Able to Make Fire?

Dibble, Harold L.; Sandgathe, Dennis; Goldberg, Paul; McPherron, Shannon P.; Aldeias, Vera

doi:10.1007/s41982-017-0002-6

Cited by 37 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 84 publications

(85 reference statements)

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“…As our results show, tar production does not require complex cognition, nor high planning depth, and it can derive from the simple juxtaposition of 2 everyday objects for Neanderthals (birch bark and stone or bone surfaces) derived from fire making/tending. While some parts (fire making/tending-see the current debate on whether Neanderthals were able to make fire [31,32]-and perhaps hafting in itself) may or may not be good indicators of complex, modern human-like cognition, the condensation technique itself is not: a mere repetition of bringing 2 objects in close proximity and gathering of a resource is well within the cognitive power even of nonhuman great apes (33,34). So, the natural (instead of cultural) intelligence of Neanderthals may have sufficed for the condensation method to 1) be innovated, possibly even multiple times, and 2) be preserved in populations via a process of "socially mediated serial reinnovations" (35).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birch tar production does not prove Neanderthal behavioral complexity

Schmidt

Blessing

Rageot

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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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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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birch tar production does not prove Neanderthal behavioral complexity

Schmidt

Blessing

Rageot

et al. 2019

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…The timing of the use and control of fire by humans is a major debate in human evolution . Marked as one of the most important technological advancements by the Homo genus, the ability to make and use fire has major socio‐ecological implications including modification of resources and the environment, colonization of the northern latitudes, extension of daylight hours, cooking and expansion of our range of material culture .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Marked as one of the most important technological advancements by the Homo genus, the ability to make and use fire has major socio‐ecological implications including modification of resources and the environment, colonization of the northern latitudes, extension of daylight hours, cooking and expansion of our range of material culture . Although the timing of the use and control of fire is debated, over recent years research on the behavior of other animals including non‐human primates has provided insight into how the initial uptake of fire may have occurred . The benefits of foraging in recently burned landscapes have been suggested by several researchers, and recently burned areas are argued to present attractive environments for early hominins along with many other animals .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The timing of the use and control of fire by humans is a major debate in human evolution. [1][2][3][4][5] Marked as one of the most important technological advancements by the Homo genus, the ability to make and use fire has major socio-ecological implications including modification of resources and the environment, colonization of the northern latitudes, extension of daylight hours, cooking and expansion of our range of material culture. 1,[6][7][8] Although the timing of the use and control of fire is debated, over recent years research on the behavior of other animals including non-human primates has provided insight into how the initial uptake of fire may have occurred.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1,[6][7][8] Although the timing of the use and control of fire is debated, over recent years research on the behavior of other animals including non-human primates has provided insight into how the initial uptake of fire may have occurred. [1][2][3][4][5][9][10][11] The benefits of foraging in recently burned landscapes have been suggested by several researchers, and recently burned areas are argued to present attractive environments for early hominins along with many other animals. [9][10][11] In this view, foraging in fire prone environments by our ancestors ca.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The possible role of predator–prey dynamics as an influence on early hominin use of burned landscapes

Hoare

2019

Evolutionary Anthropology

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Foraging in burned areas has been suggested to represent the earliest stage in the use and control of fire by early hominins. Recently burned areas offer immediate foraging benefits including increased search efficiency for high‐ranked food items and decreased hunting opportunities for ambush predators. As such, they provide a triple‐bonus (reduced risk from ambush, ease of terrestrial travel and higher foraging returns) for some primates. However, previous studies have not yet accounted for other types of predators e.g., coursing (endurance predators that can pursue prey over long distances) which were sympatric with hominins and may also have exploited these environments. Behavioral ecology studies on the use of burned landscapes by extant carnivores demonstrate that while some ambush predators avoid recently burned areas, coursing predators do take advantage of their immediate hunting opportunities. Research examining habitat selection by animals under the simultaneous threat of multiple predator species with different modes of hunting, and the diversity of Plio‐Pleistocene carnivore guild is suggestive of two possible evolutionary scenarios in which hominins could either have selected or avoided burned areas (3–2 mya), based on whether ambush or coursing predators were perceived as presenting the greatest risk.

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The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene

Ben-Dor

Sirtoli

Barkai

2021

American J Phys Anthropol

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The human trophic level (HTL) during the Pleistocene and its degree of variability serve, explicitly or tacitly, as the basis of many explanations for human evolution, behavior, and culture. Previous attempts to reconstruct the HTL have relied heavily on an analogy with recent hunter-gatherer groups' diets. In addition to technological differences, recent findings of substantial ecological differences between the Pleistocene and the Anthropocene cast doubt regarding that analogy's validity. Surprisingly little systematic evolution-guided evidence served to reconstruct HTL. Here, we reconstruct the HTL during the Pleistocene by reviewing evidence for the impact of the HTL on the biological, ecological, and behavioral systems derived from various existing studies. We adapt a paleobiological and paleoecological approach, including evidence from human physiology and genetics, archaeology, paleontology, and zoology, and identified 25 sources of evidence in total. The evidence shows that the trophic level of the Homo lineage that most probably led to modern humans evolved from a low base to a high, carnivorous position during the Pleistocene, beginning with Homo habilis and peaking in Homo erectus. A reversal of that trend appears in the Upper Paleolithic, strengthening in the Mesolithic/Epipaleolithic and Neolithic, and culminating with the advent of agriculture. We conclude that it is possible to reach a credible reconstruction of the HTL without relying on a simple analogy with recent hunter-gatherers' diets. The memory of an adaptation to a trophic level that is embedded in modern humans' biology in the form of genetics, metabolism, and morphology is a fruitful line of investigation of past HTLs, whose potential we have only started to explore.

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Were Western European Neandertals Able to Make Fire?

Cited by 37 publications

References 84 publications

Birch tar production does not prove Neanderthal behavioral complexity

Birch tar production does not prove Neanderthal behavioral complexity

The possible role of predator–prey dynamics as an influence on early hominin use of burned landscapes

The evolution of the human trophic level during the Pleistocene

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