Risu just sent me this and I am SO DELIGHTED
World's oldest string of yarn found in French cave Archeologists say they have found the world's oldest piece of yarn or cord, making it the earliest known evidence of textile and cord making CNNAhhhhhhh!!! Go read it! Go read it!! The cording was plied by Neanderthals!!! The article talks about how we can’t keep thinking about them as being stupid it’s so delightful! In these trying times, let’s read about some joyful anthropological and archaeological discoveries!!!
Read it! The fact that it’s plied is so exciting! For plied cord, you first spin your fibers in one direction (they did it clockwise) and then take that collection of singles and twist them in the opposite direction (in this case counterclockwise). So it’s a process that requires planning and experience. You spin your first bit, you set it aside, you spin your second and third, you ply them. You can’t do it all in one go. And unless this piece happens to be the work of the very first person to spin fibers, and that person was a super genius who not only invented the idea of spinning but the technique for plying, it shows that the Neanderthals were communicating technological skills amongst each other. Which I mean isn’t news in and of itself, but this is just one more piece of evidence.
FERAL FROTHING IN FIBER ARTS
THIS SHIT IS SO COOL
Holy shit this is incredible! The puts textile technology at 40,000 - 50,000 years old; the earliest previous evidence we had was 20,000 - 25,000 years.
And also, like the poster above said, this is evidence of *planning*. I was going into the article thinking “hmmm, extremely cool but probably thigh-spun two ply which is a single stage process…?” but no! This is three ply cord! I guess it might be possible to do thigh-spun three ply (be bloody tricky though which would be evidence of skill in itself), but more likely this was a highly skilled multi-stage process.
Holy shit.
@deadcatwithaflamethrower cool things!
Geezum tag your textile porn, willya? *drools*