Neanderthals may have used birch tar as more than just glue; it could have helped them ward off infection and even insect ...

What if the best record of your daily habits was stuck inside something that looks like a lump of old chewing gum? For Europe’s first farmers, that sticky record came from birch trees. A new ...

Some 9,700 years ago, on an autumn day, a group of people were camping on the west coast of Scandinavia. They were hunter-gatherers fishing, hunting, and collecting resources in the area. Some ...

Neolithic people seem to have enjoyed chewing gum just as much as a bored kid in calculus. Their discarded wads are even revealing surprising details on human life as far back as 6,000 years ago. Tar ...

Neanderthals may have used birch tar for more than tools. New research shows it could slow bacteria and help protect wounds.

Some 9,700 years ago on an autumn day, a group of people were camping on the west coast of Scandinavia. They were hunter-gatherers that had been fishing, hunting and collecting resources in the area.

Tar made from birch tree bark is commonly found at Neanderthal sites, and experiments show that it kills some bacteria that ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. An artistic reconstruction shows Lola, a ...