Neanderthal Birch Tar May Have Doubled as Ancient Antibiotic
For decades, the sticky black tar that Neanderthals cooked out of birch bark has been filed away in the archaeological literature as prehistoric glue. A new round of laboratory experiments suggests that label is far too narrow. Researchers in Germany, Britain, Belgium and Canada made birch tar using methods reconstructed from Middle Palaeolithic sites, then tested it against bacteria, and every sample inhibited Staphylococcus aureus, the organism behind many infected wounds. The work, published in PLOS One, was led by Tjaark Siemssen of the University of Cologne and the University of Oxford.
A Glue That Did Much More Than Stick
Birch tar is found at Neanderthal sites across Europe, often still clinging to stone tools. It was made by heating birch bark under low-oxygen conditions, a process called dry distillation, and used to bind flint points to wooden shafts, a technique known as hafting. Ancient Origins has previously reported on the discovery of a 65,000-year-old Neanderthal tar distillation oven in Gibraltar, a purpose-built hearth for extracting tar from resin-rich plants.
But the picture has been widening. Traces of chamomile and yarrow in Neanderthal dental calculus, and the careful planning revealed by stone tools carried across the landscape, point to people who knew and used medicinal plants. Indigenous communities in northern Europe and Canada still use birch tar on wounds, which prompted Siemssen’s team to ask whether the same material had a second life in the Ice Age.
www.Ancient-Origins.net – Reconstructing the story of humanity’s past
Source: https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/neanderthal-birch-tar-antibiotic-00103250
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