Wooden tools hint at fire use by early Neanderthals

Popular Archaeology ^ | Monday, February 05, 2018 | editors

[SunkenCiv]

Detail of the handle of digging stick no. 2 on the paleosurface U2 of the Poggetti Vecchi site. PNAS

[SunkenCiv]

[kaehurowing]

So easy even a cave man can do it.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wooden tools 171,000 years old that didn’t rot away? Color me a bit skeptical.

Fire also hardens wooden tools; it is not just used to shape the tool. I suspect they did it more for hardening than shaping. But what do I know?

[buckalfa]

Ayla ?

[bert]

Ayla dildo?

[WinMod70]

I’m thinking either a rake or hoe handle; early True Temper.

[sparklite2]

Whenever I chat up Neanderthal chicks,
my Cro-Magnon gonads keep stalling.
It’s not a bad lick how her brow is too thick,
but that New Jersey accent’s appalling.

[SunkenCiv]

Layla - John Fahey - YouTube

[Snickering Hound]

"They're Tiki torches, goes with this South Pacific theme I had landscaped with the Jacuzzi."

[ClearCase_guy]

Wooden tools 171,000 years old that didn’t rot away?

Concur. I don't think we date things as accurately as we think we do. I doubt that these sticks are anywhere near that age.

[freedumb2003]

Was she Bertha Butt? One of the Butt sistas?

[Taipei]

In anaerobic conditions, such as very wet or waterlogged soils, the lack of oxygen drastically slows the processes of decomposition.

[Snickering Hound]

In anaerobic conditions, such as very wet or waterlogged soils, the lack of oxygen drastically slows the processes of decomposition.

It's how you get petrified wood. Just takes much more time.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Understand about anaerobic conditions, but 171,000 years? Also, look at the soil in the photo. That doesn’t look like a peat bog but regular soil.

[freedumb2003]

>>Understand about anaerobic conditions, but 171,000 years? Also, look at the soil in the photo. That doesn’t look like a peat bog but regular soil.<<

I am not a biologist nor do I play one on TV nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn last night but I am going to guess there is a reason why they analyze the actual material and not pictures of them.

[Rebelbase]

I’ve never considered Boxwood to be a timber.

I guess timber is British for wood?

[To Hell With Poverty]

Aahhh, I’m just a simple housewife, but isn’t it well established that the Neanderthals thrived during the Ice Age? You’d assume that, barring the discovery of a thick pelt, fire use would be a given.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah. There’s a weird racist bias against Neandertal, been that way since Virchow decided the fossil remains were 18th century naked cossacks who picked that cave to starve in.

[Little Bill]

The thing that has always bothered me about our Neanderthal buds, is how static their tool kits remained over the Eons.