Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Applied Mineralogy, Department of Geosciences, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2022 Jan 10;12(1):413. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-04161-3.
The use of birch tar can be traced back to the European Middle Palaeolithic and is relevant for our understanding of the technical skills and cognitive abilities of Neanderthals. Due to the lack of archaeological evidence, it remains unknown what techniques were used for birch tar making. Efficiency was recently used as a proxy to determine the method most likely used in the Middle Palaeolithic. Todtenhaupt et al. have proposed a technique employing a groove-like structure that is comparable with the recently presented condensation method. The groove method resulted in higher tar yields compared to other experimental aceramic production processes. However, the implications for Palaeolithic tar making remain unclear because some of the materials used in the experiment were not available then (polished granite slabs). To approach this problem, we replicated the groove with river cobbles and, in a second experiment with flint fragments, to evaluate whether similar results can be obtained. We were successful in producing birch tar in multiple runs with the cobble- and flint-grooves, which, in addition, proved to be more efficient than the condensation method in terms of tar yield per bark input. Our experimental study provides an additional possibility to make prehistoric birch tar.
桦焦油的使用可以追溯到欧洲中更新世，这对于我们理解尼安德特人的技术技能和认知能力至关重要。由于缺乏考古证据，我们仍然不知道桦焦油的制作采用了什么技术。最近，人们使用效率作为替代指标来确定中更新世最可能使用的方法。托登豪特等人提出了一种采用类似凹槽结构的技术，这种技术与最近提出的冷凝方法相媲美。与其他非陶瓷生产工艺相比，凹槽法的焦油产量更高。然而，由于实验中使用的一些材料在当时并不存在（抛光花岗岩板），因此对于旧石器时代焦油的制作仍不清楚。为了解决这个问题，我们用鹅卵石复制了凹槽，并在第二个用燧石碎片的实验中，评估是否可以获得类似的结果。我们成功地用鹅卵石和燧石凹槽多次生产出桦焦油，此外，就树皮输入的焦油产量而言，凹槽法比冷凝法更有效。我们的实验研究为制作史前桦焦油提供了另一种可能性。
