Pacific Science Center
Bringing science to life.
PacSci-Doku: “Ancient Glue”
By Dennis Schatz – Senior Advisor
Do you Sudoku? It’s one of the hottest number games around! Well, here’s a twist we think you’ll love. We call it PacSci-Doku. Can you guess why? Here’s how it works. Instead of filling in the blanks with numbers, we use letters. Hidden in one of the columns or rows is the answer to a science question. You’ll find information about the answer on the answer tab below.
The question in this edition is:
What was one of the possible methods that Neanderthals used to produce the first glue?
To find the answer, complete this PacSci-Doku using the following nine letters:
U A O D _ S N H M
The Puzzle
Puzzle Difficulty: Medium
The Answer
The Answer
The question in this edition is:
What was one of the possible methods that Neanderthals used to produce the first glue?
The answer: Ash Mound
Neanderthals are often described as less intelligent than modern humans. But the image of Neanderthals is slowly changing. One piece of evidence for this is that they produced the first glue made by humans to hold together their weapons. The glue had the constancy of tar. A key question has been how did they produce the glue. One possible method is the Ash Mound method. The process consisted of rolling up a piece of birch bark, and covering it with ash and hot embers from a fire. After 20 minutes, small drops of tar were found when unrolling the bark. See how the glue was used and read more about Neanderthals production of the first glue.