Clothes Make the (Hu)Man

Michael Balter 9/12/2009 10:31:00 AM Science
In this week's issue of Science I report on a possible sighting of the oldest known woven fibers, from a cave in the Republic of Georgia (see photo at left.) As always, the full story is only available to those with online access to the journal, but here are the essentials:

On page 1359 of this issue of Science, researchers from Georgia, Israel, and the United States, led by archaeologist Ofer Bar-Yosef of Harvard University, report more than 1000 fibers of the flax plant from Dzudzuana Cave in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. The microscopic fibers were found in layers radiocarbon dated to as early as 36,000 years ago, about the time when modern humans migrated into the area from Africa. A small number of fibers are colored black, gray, turquoise, and pink, and the team concludes that they were dyed.

I quote a couple of researchers questioning whether the fibers were actually dyed, but overall the commenters gave this paper a thumbs up. The team thinks the fibers were used to make clothing, baskets, and possibly cords to haft stone tools. We don't know when humans first started wearing clothes, but they leave almost no traces in the archaeological record, so this is a notable discovery.

Photo: Courtesy of Anna Belfer-Cohen.
Michael Balter

Posted by Michael Balter

I have been a working journalist for more than 40 years, beginning in Los Angeles as an investigative reporter and then in Paris as a travel, food, and science writer. For more than 20 years I have covered anthropology and archaeology writer for Science, Audubon, Scientific American, SAPIENS, and other publications. I have also covered sexual misconduct for The Verge, Scientific American, and others; I write about mental health, especially schizophrenia; and I engage in occasional media criticism. I returned to the USA in October 2017 after 30 years in Paris, and now live in the New York City area, where I currently teach journalism at City College of New York (I previously taught journalism at Boston University and New York University.) For more about me and what I do, copies of my articles, information about my book, and other goodies, please visit MY WEB SITE

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3 Comments

Anne Gilbert said…
MIchael:

Turquoise and pink dyes? Back cin those days? Very interesting! Wish I ccould see the whole report, though!
September 12, 2009 at 6:41 PM
mindo said…
I think the most important fact is the skull found on the site belongs to a human being 1.8 million years old. This fact changes the misconception of human's evolution. But evolutionists are trying to avoid this fact by not mentioning about it and only focusing on 30000 year old clothing...?
September 17, 2009 at 7:51 AM
Michael Balter said…
I'm afraid that mindo is confusing this site with another one in Georgia, Dmanisi, where 1.8 million year old early human fossils have indeed been discovered. But these are two different sites with no direction relationship; and they also have no relationship with mindo's apparent doubts about evolution, which he/she does not spell out.
September 17, 2009 at 1:07 PM
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