More than 40,000 years ago, early people in what is now France used a multi-component adhesive to make handles for stone tools. They produced a sophisticated mixture of ochre and bitumen, two raw materials that had to be procured from the wider region. This is the earliest discovery of a multi-component adhesive in Europe to date.
Under the direction of Dr. Patrick Schmidt from the University of Tübingen’s Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology section and Dr. Ewa Dutkiewicz from the Museum of Prehistory and Early History at the National Museums in Berlin, researchers re-examined finds from the Neanderthal site of Le Moustier in the Dordogne for evidence of prehistoric glues. ...
