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fritsd [soylentnews.org] writes:

Excavations of several Neanderthal sites have found small rocks of Manganese Dioxide [wikipedia.org] (the black stuff from inside Zinc batteries). It was assumed that these were used as pigments for painting.

But now, a multidisciplinary team of scientists from the universities of Leiden and Delft have discovered that the Neanderthals probably used the little blocks for a much more high-tech purpose: to make fire.

If you scrape off some of the MnO2 and sprinkle it on your kindling, it will start to burn at a much lower temperature!

Link: Neanderthals collected manganese dioxide to make fire [universiteitleiden.nl]

It's fascinating to imagine that this non-obvious technology, which is not in use at present by modern humans, was invented by our humanoid nephews 50 000 years ago.

Original Submission