"Neanderthals may have used manganese dioxide to make fire" Topic

"Several Neanderthal sites in France have yielded large numbers of small black blocs. Neanderthals used these 'manganese oxides' in fire-making and not as previously thought for colouring.

The usual interpretation is that these 'manganese oxides' were collected for their colouring properties and used in body decoration, potentially for symbolic expression.

Neanderthals habitually used fire and if they needed black material for decoration, soot and charcoal were readily available, whereas obtaining manganese oxides would have incurred considerably higher subsistence costs…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

We have moved so far from the view of them as sub-human, when the first skull was discovered in the C19th.

Now whose da monkey :)

The full paper is interesting reading. The interesting point to me is that unlike nearby painted caves in which a variety of manganese oxides were used as pigments in the proposed "fire starting" sites only a particular manganese dioxide was collected, this being the form of manganese ore that produces an advantage in fire making which others do not.

Wow, that's really interesting!

Happy you enjoyed it my friend!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Catalytic combustion, Pretty tricky for 50,000 years ago.

Interesting.