Study suggests early humans sported leather clothing nearly 39,000 years ago
“We have no direct evidence for clothes in the Pleistocene, so finding any indirect evidence is valuable.”
Homo sapiens wore leather in Europe 39,600 years ago, according to research done on bone. The study of an ancient bone from Spain shows that a strange pattern of notches hints that they used the bone to make holes in the leather.
As reported by New Scientist, the bone was found at a location named Terrasses de la Riera dels Canyars near Barcelona, Spain, and it came from the hip of a huge creature like a horse or bison. On its flat surface, there are 28 puncture marks, including a linear row of 10 holes spaced roughly 5 millimeters apart as well as additional holes in more haphazard locations.
“We do not have much information about clothes because they’re perishable,” says Luc Doyon at the University of Bordeaux, France, who led the study. “They are an early technology we’re in the dark about.”
As Doyon suggested, this pattern was “highly intriguing” because it didn’t seem to be a decoration or a representation of a counting tally, which are the typical explanations for the intentional placement of lines or dots on prehistoric artifacts.
10 indents were created by a single tool
Microscopic examination showed that the line of 10 indents was created by a single tool, and the other dots were created through five separate tools at various periods. The researchers employed a method known as experimental archaeology, in which you experiment with various historical tools to discover how markings were formed.
According to the experts, the indents’ most plausible cause is that they were created during the production or repair of leather goods. Doyon advises piercing a hole in the animal hide to create a tight seam and using a pointed tool to force a thread through the material.
“It’s a very significant discovery,” says Ian Gilligan at the University of Sydney, Australia. “We have no direct evidence for clothes in the Pleistocene, so finding any indirect evidence is valuable. The oldest surviving fragments of cloth in the world date from around 10,000 years ago.”
This revelation aids in resolving the riddle surrounding the invention of tailored clothing. Although eyed needles haven’t been discovered in this area before about 26,000 years ago, and even then, they weren’t strong enough to repeatedly pierce thick leather, which begs the question of how these prehistoric people managed to make clothing to fit them. Homo sapiens arrived in Europe around 42,000 years ago.
The study was published in Science Advances on April 12.
Study abstract:
Puncture alignments are found on Palaeolithic carvings, pendants, and other fully shaped osseous artifacts. These marks were interpreted as abstract decorations, system of notations, and features present on human and animal depictions. Here, we create an experimental framework for the analysis and interpretation of human-made punctures and apply it to a highly intriguing, punctured bone fragment found at Canyars, an Early Upper Palaeolithic coastal site from Catalonia, Spain. Changes of tool and variation in the arrangement and orientation of punctures are consistent with the interpretation of this object as the earliest-known leather work punch board recording six episodes of hide pricking, one of which was to produce a linear seam. Our results indicate that Aurignacian hunters-gatherers used this technology to produce leather works and probably tailored clothes well before the introduction of bone eyed needles in Europe 15,000 years later.
SHOW COMMENT ()
