Neanderthal tool-making process may have been simpler than previously thought
Researchers had long believed that birch tar—used by the Neanderthals to make tools—could only be created through a complex process in which the bark had to be heated in the absence of air. However, an international team … found that there is a very simple way to make this useful glue. … The team used their adhesive to make a wood-scraping tool and turned to a robot that used force-control technology developed by Ludovic Righetti and Johannes Pfleging. Righetti is an associate professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Departments at NYU Tandon and a senior researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in Tübingen.
