Archaeologists Discover a Complex Structure Made by Neanderthals 60,000 Years Ago
A 60,000-year- old pit in Gibraltar's Vanguard Cave demonstrates how Neanderthals used sophisticated methods to produce resin, demonstrating their cognitive sophistication. Plant-based glues, resins, and pitches have been used for mechanical and therapeutic purposes by even the earliest societies throughout history. This also applied to Neanderthals. They often chewed birch pitch, maybe for therapeutic reasons, and utilized it as an adhesive to bind lithic instruments. The process by which they created this pitch, however, is still unknown. Pitch can be obtained in two...