Neanderthals extracted resin using advanced techniques, as evidenced by a 60,000-year-old pit in Gibraltar’s Avangard Cave that reflects their cognitive level. Throughout history, even the most primitive cultures have used adhesives, resins, and resins obtained from plants for both mechanical and medicinal purposes. Neanderthals were no exception.

They often used birch resin as glue to bond stone tools together, and potentially as a chewing agent for medicinal purposes. But how they produce this resin is still a mystery.

In theoretical studies, two methods of obtaining pitch are distinguished: the simple, low-yield method by burning birch wood in the open air and the more complex method requiring heating of birch sawdust without oxygen. That is, they used embedded pieces of wood heated by fire, thus releasing resin, but they could not burn because they were isolated from oxygen. Whether they use this or that method is of great importance in assessing their cognitive abilities. A more complex method requires significant organization and practice.

Caves that are reflections of the past

A scientific study involving the University of Seville described for the first time a structure compatible with theoretical studies of oxygen-free heating. The structure appears to be a simple pit, and this simplicity may be the reason why this structure could not be identified. Proving its use as an oxygen-free heating chamber was only possible through numerous analyzes and the collaboration of an interdisciplinary team.

The discovery was made in Avangard Cave (Gibraltar, United Kingdom), part of the “Gorham Cave Complex”, which has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2016. This complex has once again proven its ability to preserve true snapshots of past human activities, thanks to the rapid advance of the dune covering its ruins.

31 researchers from more than 5 countries and experts from 15 different disciplines came together and concluded that this structure could only have been created by Neanderthals approximately 60,000 years ago. His areas of expertise include paleobonics, archaeology, chemistry, geochemistry and mineralogy.

“They were not animals of the popular imagination”

Fernando Muñiz, lecturer at the Department of Crystallography, Mineralogy and Agricultural Chemistry at the University of Seville, explains that “our extinct cousins ​​were not the cruel people of the popular imagination.” This human species has been proven to have cognitive abilities; This is reflected in works demonstrating the mastery of industrial processes used to make resin as an adhesive to attach stone points to spear shafts.

On the other hand, excavation leader Clive Finlayson explains: “Neanderthals had to go through a series of mental processes, such as choosing which plants to choose and figuring out how to extract the resin without burning them.” Techniques have been developed to show that the structure created by Neanderthals was habitable, and even experimental archaeological research has been completed.

Geochemical data and fossil pollen data indicate that the resin was obtained from the rose of thorns (cystus ladanifer) and not from birch, which was a rarer tree in the Mediterranean latitudes of that time.

Before the 20th century, labdanum oil was known to be obtained from rock rose for use as perfume, cough syrup, and antiseptic, by a method very similar to the one described in this work.

This project, carried out by the Gibraltar Museum, the University of Murcia and the Andalusian Institute of Earth Sciences (CSIC) with the participation of the University of Seville, sets a precedent in understanding the technological and organizational abilities of Neanderthals. It creates new opportunities for the discovery and analysis of similar structures in other fields.

Signs of primitive art

In 2012, Finlayson’s team found a strange hashtag-like mark on a piece of limestone that some experts interpreted as a sign of primitive art. They collected exclusively black feathers from a wide variety of birds, perhaps for aesthetic or ceremonial purposes.

“They probably used herbs to paint their faces or bodies, buried their dead, made jewelry and special tools, and made ocher and other pigments. The anatomy of their trachea suggests that they could speak and probably had high-pitched, squeaky voices,” says Muñiz.