Thread by @LeMoustier

Aaaand it's out!

#Neanderthals made fine twine 45-50,000 years ago!

newscientist.com/article/224011…

I gave comments to the above article, and here's my more detailed thread (on THREAD)

😁

https://twitter.com/LeMoustier/status/1248185993871732736

This find comes from Abri du Maras, SE France, which has already shown exceptional organic preservation due to unusual thin mineral films on the artefacts.
Previous finds included proof of small game butchery: fragments of raptor feathers, rabbit/hare fur and fish scales.

Another find from 7 yrs ago was *possible* evidence of 'string' .
Tiny plant fibres were found on stone artefacts, twisted in a way that didn't look natural.
It was slim evidence and some (inc. me) were skeptical. But the team continued, upping digging & conservation protocols.

Then the director, Marie-Hélène Moncel (a wonderful colleague) found a stone tool with a weird thing on its lower face, under the cemented mineral layer. It was bagged up immediately and sent it to be examined microscopically. This means basically v. low chance of contaminants.

Several hefty microscopes later and the finding is really stunning.
Although tiny - 6mm long - it's clearly multi-stranded thread. What's more the direction of twist for individual parts goes one way (S), while the thread itself twists them together the opposite way (Z).

Team already did experiments to see if plant fibres twist up naturally when scraped with tools (they didn't), but it's really hard to see any way this new reverse-twisted piece could be produced accidentally. I'm convinced, but still 😱

So what is it? Multiple tests point to coniferous bark fibres: pine, fir, or juniper.
Most surprising to me is how incredibly fine it is. At just 0.5 mm wide, even assuming some shrinkage from drying, it's basically not far off thickness of yarn in my scarf.

Nobody is saying this fragment was part of a woven textile but whatever it was made for, it doesn't look heavy-duty.
Thin twine might be useful for bindings on composite hafted tools. It could also have strung small things together. Or perhaps it was plied again, even thicker.

There were more bark twisted fibres found on other tools, although none plied together, so it does seem that Abri du Maras has potential for further discoveries.
But several implications of this one piece jump out at me.

We already knew #Neanderthals were intimately familiar with plants inc. material properties of wood for tools, as well as eating a wide variety.
But at Neumark Nord, an older site from warmer climate than today, there was also evidence - on one tool- for processing oak bark.

To make bark fibre for twine, it needs soaking well. The brown blob on the Neumark Nord tool had a lot of oak tannin in, which must have been from soaked bark. This has previously been suggested as evidence for tanning leather, but perhaps they were also using the fibres.

Making bark thread, twine or cord is hugely labour intensive. It means a lot of delicate manual work, rolling on thigh or torso. And chewing to re-soften stored fibres.
#Neanderthals wore their teeth down by using as tools, certainly by hide-working. But perhaps also twine.

This find is really jaw-dropping, not because we didn't know they were clever (I'm always #TeamNeanderthal) but because the implications for deep knowledge, craft complexity & specialisation in daily life are profound.
Organic 'ghost' tech is so rare, but so precious.

Congrats to team & reviewers- finds like this really have potential to transform how we imagine #Neanderthals and must be subject to careful scrutiny.

I'm holding out for an entire frozen body to see what the twine was really for- perhaps bags, the great Palaeolithic mystery! 😊

PS I took a little time out of finishing my book to share this find because it's too awesome ❤️

If you want to know every damn amazing thing about #Neanderthals, you can pre-order here 😊 (2020 is a hard year for new books so anything is appreciated...)

bloomsbury.com/uk/kindred-978…