A Nature Journal Article Validates DeconstructingTime's Blogs
About Paleo Woven-Fiber Technology
New Direct Evidence Supports
Early Paleolithic Woven-Fiber Technology
and suggests cognitive and behavioral implications
that are in substantial agreement with the views of DeconstructingTime's blogs
ABSTRACT:
A recent article in the highly respected scientific journal, Nature, states that the authors have found direct evidence of Neanderthal woven-fiber technology in the form of cordage attached to a stone tool. This is a game-changer for many reasons. It is the oldest direct find so far of a woven-fiber fragment (including basketry and textiles), the fragment was from the Middle Paleolithic era, the fragment indicates that the technology was quite sophisticated, and the hominins who made this were not Homo sapiens but Neanderthals. Furthermore, this find along with other recent finds (detailed in the appendix of this article), begins to fill in the 'blank' area of Paleolithic woven-fiber tools and technology, because up until recently there was almost no information about fiber items since they decayed and left few traces.
This find along with the other significant finds, taken together, strongly suggests that there was a well-developed woven-fiber technology during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic eras and that it had been evolving for a long period of time -- but just how long is the most interesting and critical question.
If it happened over a relatively short period of time such as 100 ka, then Homo sapiens' cognition and memory were probably already developed when "woven-fiber technology" first began. However, if it happened over 2 million years (2000 ka), then "woven-fiber technology" may have had a major influence on the survival, evolution, and cognitive development of hominins long before Homo sapiens appeared on the scene.
It is my contention that the earliest woven-fiber technology, basket weaving technology, may have begun as long as 2 million years ago with early hominins such as Homo habilis. I believe that basket weaving technology eventually led to the manufacture of cordage and then textiles, so I have called all three of these together "woven-fiber technology."
If a rudimentary basket weaving technology did begin 2 million years ago, this is a paradigm shift. The early creation of baskets would mean that these hominins could gather and carry more food and materials, for example, which in turn would have affected their survival and evolution; also the craft of making baskets would have affected their cognitive development.
INTRODUCTION
An article describing direct evidence of Middle Paleolithic fiber technology just came to my attention. This article was published in the well respected, 150-year-old peer-reviewed scientific journal, Nature. It confirms and agrees with many of the conclusions I made over the past two years in my blogs here at DeconstructingTime about basket weaving technology or what I have called 'woven-fiber technology' -- a more general term I have proposed that would include basketry, cordage, textiles, and many other items.
I only just became aware of this article which was published on April 9th, 2020. But six months prior to its publication I had made many of the same points in my first major article about basket weaving technology. I then wrote 4 articles before April 9 2020 and then another 8 for more than a year after this article was published, although I was unaware that such an article had been published. My conclusions were very similar to the conclusions of this highly respected research.
-- The Deconstructingtime Blog Article --
Evidence for a Basket Weaving
and Woven-Fiber Technology
in the Paleolithic Era
Sunday, September 22, 2019
Download this as a pdf file on Academia.edu
The Nature article confirms that cordage was made in the Middle Paleolithic era by Neanderthals. This is the oldest evidence of cordage or woven-fiber technology, including baskets and textiles, that has been found so far.
This find is important for the following reasons: First of all, it pushes the date back at least twelve thousand years for the first direct evidence of woven-fiber technology. And by doing so it now places this earliest find in the late Middle Paleolithic rather than the early Upper Paleolithic. And it also establishes the fact that another hominin, other than we Homo sapiens, was capable of making woven-fiber materials.
But this discovery revealed so much more. The sophistication of the cordage meant that this technology must have begun many years earlier. Furthermore, cordage would probably have been widely used in a tribe to make a variety of items so its use would have had cognitive implications as well.
The Nature article concluded:
"The production of cordage is complex and requires detailed knowledge of plants, seasonality, planning, retting, etc. Indeed, the production of cordage requires an understanding of mathematical concepts and general numeracy in the creation of sets of elements and pairs of numbers to create a structure."
Virtually all of their conclusions were, in general, the same as the ones that I had formulated. However, my conclusions went further. I believe that the earliest invention of basket weaving technology or woven-fiber technology may have begun and been accomplished by early hominins such as Homo habilis as early as 2 million years ago thus affecting the evolution of hominins.
Early basket making, for example, would have allowed the gathering of more food and also the gathering of materials from distant locations such as special types of quartz for making stone tools [see my later blog about this].
New Evidence Suggests
That Basket Making
May Have Begun 2 Million Years Ago
ABOUT 'WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY'
'Woven-fiber technology' is a term that I have proposed that includes basketry, cordage and textiles. I believe that this technology probably evolved more or less in that order. I suggest that some of the earliest basketry could have begun with a random weave and large strands such as vines. However, the types of strands would have been determined by the plants that were available in the environment. As the technology developed the guage of usable strands would have included ones that were smaller and finer ending up with the fine fibers used in cordage and threads for weaving textiles in looms.
QUOTATIONS FROM THE NATURE ARTICLE
Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology
and its cognitive and behavioral implications
PUBLIC ACCESS ALLOWED
We know from observations of our own surroundings, ethnographic and ethnohistoric accounts that most of the material culture of humans (and Neanderthals) is comprised of perishable materials [that leaves few traces]. Hurcombe has called this problem “the missing majority”.
Researchers have demonstrated that the microenvironment immediately surrounding a stone tool can preserve microscopic fragments of what is otherwise invisible archaeologically. This is also true for the preservation of a 3-ply cordage fragment adhering to a stone tool (flake) from Abri Du Maras [the cordage fragment in this article].
Examination of photomicrographs revealed 3 bundles of fibres with s-twist which were then plied together with a z-twist to form a 3-ply cord. The cord is approximately 6.2 mm in length and approximately 0.5 mm in width.
SEM photo of 3-ply cord. First closeup shows Z-twist of strands (image rotated 90° counter-clockwise for clarity); 2nd closeup shows S-twist of fibres within a single strand.
The bast fibres are first s-twisted to form yarn, then the yarns z-twisted (in the opposite direction to prevent unravelling) to form a strand or cord. Cordage production entails context sensitive operational memory to keep track of each operation. As the structure becomes more complex (multiple cords twisted to form a rope, ropes interlaced to form knots), it demonstrates an “infinite use of finite means” and requires a cognitive complexity similar to that required by human language.
(Not from the Nature article) A few examples of knots from an old Larousse book. This shows the virtually infinite number of combinations of rope and knotting that are possible.
[This] cord fragment from Abri Du Maras is the oldest direct evidence of fibre technology to date...The cord fragment...[dates] to between 41 and 52 ka. Thus, it appears increasingly likely that fibre technology is much older than previously thought.
While it is clear that the cord from Abri Du Maras demonstrates Neanderthals’ ability to manufacture cordage, it hints at a much larger fibre technology. Once the production of a twisted, plied cord has been accomplished it is possible to manufacture bags, mats, nets, fabric, baskets, structures, snares, and even watercraft.
Ropes and baskets are central to a large number of human activities. They facilitate the transport and storage of foodstuffs, aid in the design of complex tools (hafts, fishing, navigation) or objects (art, decoration). The technological and artistic applications of twisted fibre technologies are vast. Once adopted, fibre technology would have been indispensable and would have been a part of everyday life.
Fibre acquisition, processing, and production may have also played an important role in scheduling daily and seasonal activities...Fibre technology would have been an important part of everyday life and would have influenced seasonal scheduling and mobility.
Plants play an important role not only in the material conception of objects but also in the formation of the thought of a culture, its representation of the world and its cosmogony.
Its production demonstrates a detailed ecological understanding of trees and how to transform them into entirely different functional substances...Furthermore, the production of cordage implies a cognitive understanding of numeracy and context sensitive operational memory. [See the appendix for a detailed description.]
(Not from the Nature article) Examples of rope construction.
MY BLOG-ARTICLES ABOUT WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY
While the Nature journal article focused on cordage, it is my contention that simple basket weaving came earlier (such as randing or plaiting) with thick vines or wide strands and then gradually expanded into an understanding of fine fiber strands that could then be twisted into a powerful rope technology.
This is a traditional Tamil basket constructed with wide strands.
"This photo depicting a Palmyra craft work used for keeping food materials. This is one of the Tamil traditional icon."
I see basketry, cordage, and textiles as being part of the same technology that probably evolved in that order. But there may have been an earlier stage even before randing or plaiting. In this scenario, simple, crude, random weave baskets, some made of vines, could have been the first woven-fiber structures made by hominins, and plaiting and randing would have come after that.
A random weave basket made with vines. (Photo/basket: Nan Bowles)
In my first article, I found a variety of quotes from the following different experts to support my research. While each idea that I cited originated with each expert, I may be one of the first researchers to link them all together into a coherent hypothesis.
Dr. Adovasio, the leading woven-fiber technology expert, believes that our understanding of early humans is based on stone tools because they have been found in quantity. However, because fiber decays and does not leave a trace, there is little direct evidence for the archeologist. Yet he believes that stone tools were less than 10% of the artifacts of these cultures.
Another expert had this to say:
"The vast majority of the materials with which prehistoric people were surrounded and with which they worked is lost to us today. ...organic materials start to decay as soon as they are deposited in the ground."
I quoted these other experts also:
"There is no region in the world, except in the northernmost and southernmost parts, where people do not have at their disposal materials—such as twigs, roots, canes, and grasses—that lend themselves to the construction of baskets."
"Traditional peoples such as Philippines horticulturists often possessed exceptionally detailed knowledge of local plant and animals and their natural history, recognizing in one case some 1,600 plant species."
"Early civilization called for temporary shelters to be built, so knowing how to twine, plait, knot and weave materials such as grass, twigs, string and twine together, in order to build walls, roofs, bedding, baskets and doors, was imperative."
After these quotations from experts I wrote this:
There is a high probability that basket weaving and weaving technology began much earlier in the Paleolithic era than previously thought. And further that it is highly improbable that this technology only began in the Upper Paleolithic era.
In addition, if it can be established that basket weaving and related technologies began earlier, it is also probable that Homo sapiens were able to make a wide variety of artifacts using this technology from sandals, to hammocks, to houses, and to boats much earlier than previously thought.
THERE ARE A LARGE NUMBER OF WOVEN-FIBER PROCESSES
While most people are familiar with baskets and even handmade baskets by local people, I doubt that there are many who are aware of the wide variety of woven-fiber items that are possible with weaving techniques -- everything from shoes to thatched roofs to large houses and boats and even bridges. All of these were possible in the Paleolithic era in every part of the world.
I found public domain photographs of the following woven items:
Baskets (there are literally thousands of designs from small to large, rigid to flexible, heavy-duty to light-duty, closed containers to open bags), hats, sandals, baskets for picking snails, baskets for holding live fowl, woven structures for fruit drying, wine presses, bee skep baskets for housing bees, fish traps, pannier baskets for hauling heavy loads on donkeys, walls, roofs, houses, boats and watercraft from very small to very large, bridges such as suspension bridges, ritual costumes, and figures.
Go to this blog and click on any picture to see these as a slide show.
A traditional rope suspension bridge in South America.
PROCESSES
Next, I focused on the way that processes develop and how that would affect cognition and culture -- which was also discussed in the Nature article.
I then backed up that idea with an outline of how that technology might have started, how it could have evolved and the effect it might have had on human evolution, cognition and culture. I did so in the following articles which again were published before the aforementioned article in Nature was published.
THE EVOLUTION AND DYNAMICS OF PROCESSES
"In general, these [ED: stone tool] materials develop gradually from single, all-purpose tools to an assemblage of varied and highly specialized types of artifacts, each designed to serve in connection with a specific function. Indeed, it is a process of increasingly more complex technologies, each founded on a specific tradition, that characterizes the cultural development of Paleolithic times. In other words, the trend was from simple to complex, from a stage of nonspecialization to stages of relatively high degrees of specialization..."
I touched on the importance of processes in my first article with this paragraph:
A large number of probable weaving processes, along with the making of stone tools and the processes involving fire and food, meant that people had to develop memory, ways of communicating the process steps to the next generation, and a clear idea of a future final product when they began the process.
I then went into detail in my next two articles about processes
FROM:
The Importance of Processes in the Paleolithic Era
Saturday, November 23, 2019
From The Introduction
The role of processes in the life of hominins in the Paleolithic era is one of the key factors that influenced increasingly complex cognition, planning, sharing and communication and eventually led to modern human behavior that is known as behavioral modernity.
Processes have a dynamic all their own. They can start very simply with just a few steps and eventually evolve into complicated procedures with many steps and conditions. And this is exactly what happened with the one Paleolithic process we do know a lot about, that of stone-tool technology.
Google Word Definition
Process:
-- a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end –
This short definition says it well. A process requires a series of actions in a sequence that must be learned and then executed. And at the same time, the practitioner must have a clear idea of the end result. This, among other things, requires a sense of time and procedure. It also requires planning. In addition, knowledge of a process must be taught to the next generation if the use of the process is to continue.
FROM:
The Tribal-Wide Use of Processes in the Paleolithic Era
Sunday, December 22, 2019
The experience of working with processes was something that everyone could share, refer to and communicate about. So since men, women, and children all worked with processes, they could communicate with each other using various processes as a point of reference.
WHEN DID WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY BEGIN?
However, I speculate that the origins of woven-fiber technology could have happened much further back in time
"The idea of interlacing materials together to create a weave was probably inspired by nature; by observing birds’ nests, spider webs and various animal constructions..."
While I quoted the above in my first article about basket weaving technology, I later expanded on this idea. In the first of two blog-articles I cited clear fossil evidence that early hominins such as Homo habilis lived in the same environment as weaverbirds who made well-designed, well constructed woven nests. And, as a result, it would not be unreasonable to consider that woven-fiber technology began long before Homo sapiens existed and could have begun 2 million years ago.
LEFT: Weaverbird nest.
RIGHT: Random weave basket.
HERE IS THE LINK TO THE FOSSIL EVIDENCE
HERE IS A LINK TO MY ARTICLE
Paleolithic Evidence Shows
That Homo Habilis
Could Have Learned Weaving
From Weaverbirds (Ploceidae)
Sunday, October 27, 2019
Then in the next blog-article, I showed that there was substantial evidence that paleolithic hominins lived in close association with weaverbirds. It is generally accepted by anthropologists that early hominins ate the fruit of baobab trees and that this was a principal part of their diet. But baobab trees were/are a favorite tree for weaverbirds so early hominins would have been familiar with weaverbirds.
Evidence That Paleolithic Hominins
Lived in Close Association
With Weaverbirds
and Their Basket Making Skills
Tuesday, April 7, 2020
While I am certainly not the first person to suggest that woven-fiber technology may have begun as early as 50 ka or 100 ka, I am perhaps the first to suggest that it may have begun with early hominins 2 million years ago.
CONCLUSION
In the last thirty years, ideas about basket weaving and woven-fiber technology have changed radically. For almost 100 years it was assumed that basketry could not have begun before the Neolithic era. This unscientific and mistaken assumption prevented research into the possibility that it could have started sooner. However, in the last 30 years direct and indirect evidence has shown that this technology did, in fact, exist in the Upper Paleolithic. And this recent find pushes the date back even further into the Middle Paleolithic. Moreover, all of the discovered woven-fiber objects and tools indicated that the technology was quite advanced which meant that the technology probably began much, much earlier than the date of the archeological finds.
So the question now becomes how long ago did this technology begin?
If it happened over a relatively short period of time such as 100 ka, then Homo sapiens' cognition and memory was probably already developed when "woven-fiber technology" first began. However, if it happened over 2 million years, then "woven-fiber technology" may have had a major influence on the survival, evolution, and cognitive development of hominins long before Homo sapiens appeared on the scene.
It is my contention that the earliest technology, basket weaving technology, may have begun as long as 2 million years ago with early hominins such as Homo habilis. I believe that basket weaving technology eventually led to the manufacture of cordage and then textiles, so I have called all three of these together "woven-fiber technology."
If a rudimentary basket weaving technology did begin 2 million years ago, this is a paradigm shift. The early creation of baskets would mean that these hominins could gather and carry more food and materials, for example, which in turn would have affected their survival and evolution; also the craft of making baskets would have affected their cognitive development. It would have involved creating designs, planning, a knowledge of plants, and how to process them along with basic math and geometry skills.
The problem, of course, is that evidence becomes harder to find the further researchers go back in time. Fiber evidence is especially hard to find since fiber decays, and baskets, even some quite sophisticated baskets, do not require many tools. So it is unlikely that a basket "tool kit" will be found.
However, as this Nature article shows, microscopic evidence can now be studied and evaluated. This technology will become much more sophisticated and should be able to evaluate subtle evidence such as wear patterns on Oldowan or Acheulean stone tools.
So there is a slight glimmer of hope. Awls are one of the most common tools that have been found during all time periods, both stone and bone awls. And experts agree that awls were often used to make baskets. Therefore it is possible that significant microscopic wear patterns might be recorded on the edges of some awls.
__________________________________________________________________
AFTERWORD
MAKING A TRADITIONAL ROPE BRIDGE
"Qeswachaka Bridge rope making - 01" Making rope by hand.
"Weaving' a new bridge.
Completing the weaving of the bridge.
The finished bridge.
The old bridge. "After a full year of use the bridge sags and must be replaced for safety."
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IRB-1-OldBridgeSags-keshwa3h.jpg
"Quechua craftman weaving a rope to be used for the bridge. The Inkas built the Q’eswachaka Bridge using a local grass called ichu (Jarava ichu) to make q’oya, braided ropes that could be destroyed after crossing the Apurimac River. Now the bridge is rebuilt annually by members of four Quechua communities: Huinchiri, Chaupibanda, Choccayhua, and Ccollana Quehue, who work together to maintain the tradition. Every June, four Quechua communities convene to build the Q’eswachaka. They first ask the Pachamama for permission and then collect the q’oya ropes braided by women and young girls. The chakarauwaq (engineers) tie the ropes, let the old bridge fall, and begin weaving. Once finished, they give thanks to Apu Q’eswachaka (mountain spirits)."
Q'eswachaka Rope Bridge
"KNOWN AS Q’ESWACHAKA (THE FIRST syllable is a lateral “click”), Queshuachaca or Keshwa Chaca, this is one of the only remaining examples of the Incan handwoven bridges once common in the Incan road system.
Made of woven grass, the bridge spans 118 feet and hangs 60 feet above the canyon’s rushing river. The Incan women braided small, thin ropes, which were then braided again by the men into large support cables, much like a modern steel suspension bridge. Handwoven bridges have been part of the trail and roadway system for over 500 years, and were held in very high regard by the Inca. The punishment for tampering with such a bridge was death."
________________________________________________
APPENDIX
FROM THE NATURE ARTICLE
Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications
DESCRIPTION OF THE MANUFACTURE OF THIS PALEOLITHIC CORDAGE
Overall, cordage manufacture has a complex 'chaîne operatoire' [i.e. it involves a number of sequential processes].
The cord from Abri Du Maras consists of fibres derived from the inner bark of gymnosperms, likely conifers. The fibrous layer of the inner bark is referred to as bast and eventually hardens to form bark. In order to make cordage, Neanderthals had extensive knowledge of the growth and seasonality of these trees. Bast fibres are easier to separate from the bark and the underlying wood in early spring as the sap begins to rise. The fibres increase in size and thickness as growth continues. The best times for harvesting bast fibres would be from early spring to early summer. Once bark is removed from the tree, beating can help separate the bast fibres from the bark. Additionally, retting the fibres by soaking in water aids in their separation and can soften and improve the quality of the bast. The bast must then be separated into strands and can be twisted into cordage. In this case, three groups of fibres were separated and twisted clockwise (s-twist). Once twisted the strands were twined counterclockwise (z-twist) to form a cord.
A COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF EVIDENCE FOR AN EARLY DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF CORDAGE, BASKET WEAVING, AND WOVEN-FIBER TECHNOLOGY
Please download the article to see the sources referred to.
Cordage, Basketry And Containers at the Pleistocene–holocene Boundary in Southwest Europe. Evidence From Coves De Santa Maira (Valencian Region, Spain)
In the Americas, remains of cordage, basketry and textiles from Meadowcroft rockshelter, Paisley caves, Cueva del Guitarrero and Monte Verde etc. have been directly dated to between 12 and 10 ka BP (Adovasio et al. 2014). In the Middle East, Linum usitatissimum (flax) microfibres were identified from Dzudzuana Georgia in cave levels dated to ca. 30 ka BP (Kvavadze et al. 2009). Also, cordage remains were found at Ohalo II, Israel, in a context dated to ca. 19.5 ka BP (Nadel et al. 1994). In Europe, textiles have been identified on some of the so-called Venus figurines and impressions on fire-hardened clay have also been recovered from Gravettian sites in eastern Europe, with a chronology between ca. 28 and 21 ka BP (Adovasio et al. 1996; Soffer et al. 2000).
An age of ca. 17 ka BP was attributed to the cordage identified from Lascaux (Leroi-Gourhan and Allain 1979). In northern Spain, Stone (2011) found evidence from wear on bone tools that they had been used for working perishable materials, while the Antrea net from Finland was directly dated to 9,310±120 BP (Miettinen et al. 2008). Another direct dating of textiles comes from the cave site of Chertovy Vorota, Russia, and ranges between 8,215±?55 and 7,710±?50 BP (Kuzmin et al. 2012). Later in the Holocene, references to finds of tools, wooden structures and plant fibres preserved on coasts and in lakes in northern Europe become increasingly numerous (Fischer 1995; Wigforss 2014). These data show that people developed the technique of plaiting or braiding and twining fibres, which had various applications on different continents and in various situations (Adovasio et al. 2014).
