期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2020
卷号：117
期号：9
页码：4456-4457
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1919564117
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Niekus et al. (1) present a find of Neanderthal birch tar from Zandmotor (The Netherlands), concluding that a cognitively complex underground production method was used. However, Schmidt et al. (2) recently showed that birch tar production can be simple [burning bark near stones: the condensation method (2)]. Two arguments are used by Niekus et al. (1) to claim that the Zandmotor tar was produced with a complex method: The efficiency of simpler techniques was too low, and their tar’s composition indicates a complex technique. As we will argue, these arguments are invalid. Producing 0.6 g of tar took 3 h with the condensation method (2), leading Niekus et al.
