Neanderthals were distilling tar 200 thousand years ago in Europe

Despite many recent discoveries that show Neanderthals were technologically and socially sophisticated, there's still a popular idea that these heavy-browed, pale-skinned early humans were mentally inferior to modern Homo sapiens. Now we have even more corroboration that they were pretty sharp. A fascinating new study reveals that Neanderthals were distilling tar for tool-making 200 thousand years ago—long before evidence of tar-making among Homo sapiens. And an experimental anthropologist has some good hypotheses for how they did it, too.
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/neanderthals-were-distilling-tar-200-thousand-years-ago-in-europe/?source=Snapzu