Conifer tar in the late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic of Northwestern Europe

Abstract

Adhesives have been an integral component of human technology for hundreds of thousands of years. The earliest Middle and early Upper Palaeolithic European adhesive finds consist of birch tar, conifer resin, and potentially tree gum, and up to now pine wood tar appeared a much later invention. In this paper we discuss and review possible lines of evidence for the use of wood tar during the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in Europe. First, we review how wood tar can be produced and what the material components are. We also discuss how archaeological wood tar is identified using molecular analysis of biomarkers, and we examine how archaeological production features may be identified. Second, we present and review archaeological evidence for wood tar from the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods. Our results of THM-py-GC-MS analyses of two late Pleistocene/early Holocene adhesive residues, show that pine wood tar was also used in these periods: demonstrating that people were not only aware of a range of natural sources, but also of different technological production processes for making adhesive materials. Our review of the morphology and material analysis of Mesolithic hearth pits is used to argue that these features are unlikely tar pits, as they are hypothesised to be. Finally, we stress the importance of (experimental) knowledge of the production processes when interpreting the archaeological record.