Neanderthals Were Mixing Tar 200,000 Years Ago

These prehistoric people used tar to produce tools way before modern humans came to Europe

There is still a widespread, persistent belief that Neanderthals were less capable, and less intelligent than modern Homo sapiens despite a plethora of recent finds that demonstrate their technological, cultural and social sophistication.

We now have even more proof that they were intelligent.

Learning to extract tar from tree bark was one of humanity's earliest technological achievements. Adhesives fixed stone blades neatly onto wooden handles for use as a hoe, an axe, or even a spear; and this was crucial when manufacturing compound tools with two or more pieces. Around 150,000 years before the arrival of modern Homo sapiens in Western Europe, researchers have found ancient beads of tar dating back as far as 200,000 years in Italy, Germany, and other European locations. Long before there was evidence of Homo sapiens manufacturing tar, a fascinating new study¹ indicates that Neanderthals were distilling tar for tool-making.

Just how did they do this?

Well, these experimental anthropologists has some solid theories regarding how they accomplished this. See, today's tar is distilled at temperatures between 340 and 370 °C and is done so in a ceramic vessel. Without specialist equipment, maintaining a temperature in that specific range is quite challenging. Additionally, ceramic technology did not appear on Earth until about 20,000 years ago, and ceramic pots did not become widely used until about 9,000 years ago.