Neanderthal women liked to style them-selves with make-up. They used chunks of manganese dioxide as pigments. They also used this mineral to make fire.
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During excavations at several Neanderthal sites in France, large numbers of small black blocks of manganese have been found. The usual interpretation is that these chunks were used for their colouring properties in body decoration. But a team of Leiden and Delft researchers believes the stone age people collected the minerals to make fire as well.
The scientists ground up bits of the mineral to produce a powder. When sprinkled on a pile of wood, the powder lowered the temperature needed to initiate combustion to 250°C, making it much easier to start a fire, they reported last week in Scientific Reports. Untreated wood failed to ignite at temperatures up to 350°C.
Archaeological evidence for both fireplaces and the grinding of manganese dioxide blocks to powder supports the hypothesis that Neanderthals used manganese dioxide to make fire. The project was a collaboration between researchers at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, and the Faculty 3mE, Department Process and Energy, and brought together expertise in palaeolithic archaeology, combustion research and materials science analytical techniques.
The selection and use of manganese dioxide for fire making is unknown from the ethnographic record of recent hunter-gatherers. It, therefore, provides potential new insights into Neanderthal cognitive capabilities. They may have been smarter than commonly assumed. The actions involved in the selection of a particular, non-combustible material and its use to make fire are neither obvious nor intuitive.
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