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：4458-4459
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1920933117
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：We agree with Schmidt et al. (1) that simple tar manufacturing processes exist. Tar could have been (re)discovered accidentally (2), and we do not exclude the use of condensation (3) by Neandertals. However, we think it is not the most parsimonious interpretation of all tar finds. Based on (regional) archeological and paleoenvironmental data, we suggest more efficient methods of tar production were used in the Zandmotor case (4). We will further address our reasoning. Schmidt et al. (1) suggest that simultaneously repeating the condensation process reduces the production time, yet this can also be done with distillation methods. Having more people work simultaneously requires the same number of man-hours.
