Interesting - Neanderthals Made Semi-Synthetic Adhesive For Spears/Knives

[24D.234]

https://phys.org/news/2023-05-neanderthals-synthetic-material-underground-distillation.html

Researchers at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
and colleagues in Germany have taken a closer look at the
birch tar used to affix Neanderthal tools and found a much
more complex technique for creating the adhesive than
previously considered.

Instead, researchers have discovered that the Neanderthals
who made the German birch tar used the most efficient method
with a stepwise oxygen-restricted distillation process of
underground heating to extract the synthetic adhesive.

According to the authors, "This degree of complexity is
unlikely to have been invented spontaneously." Suggesting
that the technique would have started with simpler methods
and been developed into the more complex process by
experimentation.

. . .

I'd say it's becoming more obvious that the Neanderthals
were not STUPID. Perhaps a slight difference in how the
IQ points were distributed/used, but not THAT much
different from modern humans. Indeed if you have lighter
skin, you are a Neanderthal/Human hybrid for sure. "Original
humans" are mostly found in west-central Africa, too far
away for the hybridization to have traveled back in the
critical era.

What the researchers have found here is the deliberate,
and deliberated, manufacture of a useful semi-synthetic
material - a much better glue than anything found
directly in nature. The method is not "obvious", they
had to THINK about it and refine the technique. A strong
glue for spear-points and such is VERY useful, life and
death in some cases.

Now, on whole, the Neanderthals were not prolific inventors.
Through their long time on earth their tech did not change
very much. Humans seem to have "the spark", more of a drive
to discover and rapidly improve. We're more Neanderthals
with a burr up our asses.

However it took us 100,000 years to really exceed
what the Neanderthals had been doing - so don't
get TOO proud.