How Neanderthals were annealed: chemistry for fire production

During excavations in southwestern France, archaeologists from the Netherlands, studying the habitats of Neanderthals, discovered pieces of manganese dioxide, which obviously did not get there by accident. According to scientists from Leiden University and Delft Technical University, Neanderthals could reveal the secret of this mineral, which is a catalyst for oxidative reactions, to use it to simplify the process of mining and maintaining fire.

It was previously believed that manganese dioxide was used by ancient people exclusively for decorative purposes. However, coal can always be found in abundance at parking lots, and you should not waste time and energy searching for manganese dioxide, which, although it is found quite often, is nevertheless necessary to look for on purpose.

Scientists found traces of grinding off in pieces, which allowed them to assume that the mineral was crushed into powder and added to branches and shavings to make them burn better. In laboratory experiments, archaeologists were able to find out that the temperature needed to make a fire, where the powder is added, drops by as much as 100 degrees. With such a chemical additive, making a fire 50,000 years ago without special tools would have been much easier.



Before this, scientists did not come across any signs of using manganese dioxide to make bonfires. If you do not accept the hypothesis with the facilitation of lighting a fire, it is difficult to explain why Neanderthals needed to spend strength and time searching for manganese dioxide. After all, manganese oxide has about the same color and coloring properties, while only bonfire is found in bonfires.


Reconstruction of the head of the Neanderthal Shanidar-I. John Gurch, 2010. National Museum of Natural History, Washington.

In modern science, one of the theories of the origin of modern people is the assumption that Neanderthals are crossed with Cro-Magnons, other representatives of the People genus. The first people with the features of a protoneanderthal existed in Europe another 600-350 thousand years ago, the last Neanderthals lived 25-35 thousand years ago.