Monday, August 12, 2013

Knowledge: The tool of the Neanderthal leather workers use to this day ... - Daily Mirror

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the first special tools Neanderthals in Europe have created. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the University of Leiden have the tools made of bone in two Paleolithic archaeological sites found in southwest France. They resemble Lissoirs, which to this day leather is processed, the team writes in the journal “PNAS”. Maybe it is the only legacy from the time of the Neanderthals, which has worked well for so long.

The finds could clarified an old argument about the cultural capacities of Neanderthals: They were modern humans equal or they took their culture, as both groups are met? The researchers see the tools a proof that Neanderthals had a technology that has been attributed to modern humans.

With the

produced from animal ribs, elongated grinding tools made the Neanderthals leather soft and water resistant. They took advantage of the flexibility and versatility of the bone. Micro-wear analyzes show traces that indicate a use for soft material such as animal skin. Similar tools craftsmen use today for leather processing. “50,000 years later I was able to order an almost identical copy of the Internet,” says Marie Soressi of the University of Leiden.

If the Neanderthal bone tools have themselves developed, modern humans could have taken the technology from them. For they had only pointed bone tools, as they settled in Europe. A little later she presented Lissoirs ago. The researchers see this as evidence of a cultural transfer. But you can not rule out that modern humans arrived earlier than expected and the Neanderthals in Europe has influenced. To clarify this, further sites will be investigated in Central Europe.

how widespread the Lissoir production in Neandertals was, is still unclear. The three artefacts are each a few centimeters long fragments. “If you compare it with finds from recent excavations, a pattern is clear,” says Shannon McPherron of the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig. dpa

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