How clothes were made about 39,000 years ago

A recent investigation has analyzed a bone found in Catalonia that was used 39,600 years ago as a support to perforate the skins of dead animals with burins.

The study reveals that the technique for perforating thick pieces of leather before mounting them, used both in ethnographic leather work and by present-day shoemakers, dates back to at least the early Upper Paleolithic. It is a technique that is currently used to work the skin.

A group of researchers led by Luc Doyon, from the University of Bordeaux, and including Montserrat Sanz and Joan Daura, from the University of Barcelona (UB), has carried out this study in which the discovery of the support to pierce the leather.

This support has been found in the archaeological site of Canyars, in Gavà. The support is the fragment of a mammalian coxal bone, probably from a horse or a large bovine, on whose surface there are 28 perforations made, according to microscopic analysis and experimental replicas, with lithic burins. The distribution of these perforations suggests that the objective was to produce a linear stitch consisting of at least ten equidistant holes with an average of five millimeters between each one. Likewise, five other perforation marks are observed on the bone surface, each of which produces two or three holes. Their morphology, orientation, and arrangement rule out the possibility that they were decorative elements or records of numerical information. Archaeologists argue that the most plausible explanation is that they were produced during the manufacture or repair of leather goods.

Bone awls were already documented in South Africa —data from around 73,000 years ago— and in late Neanderthal sites in Europe, but there is nothing to suggest that they were used to pierce leather. «What has now been found for the first time is the evidence of the use of burins to pierce the skin; that is to say, the trace of this activity has remained in the Canyars bone. Based on the shape of the perforations, as well as the distance between them, together with all the experimental work, we can affirm that they had sufficient technology to perforate the skin and thus make tight-fitting suits, shoes, tents…”, explains Montserrat Sanz .

The support from 39,600 years ago in Canyars (above) and the replica of the perforation technique to make a linear seam (below). (Photo: Francesco d’Errico and Luc Doyon)

The manufacture of tight clothing was essential for the survival of Paleolithic populations that lived in cold climate environments. However, very little information is available on the tools and techniques used to make form-fitting clothing before the invention of bone-made sewing needles. These needles, which archaeologists traditionally equate to the appearance of tight clothing, are not strong enough to repeatedly pierce thick leather, so they must have been used mainly for sewing thin underwear, which increased the thermal insulation properties of the clothing. Furthermore, they are relatively recent: the first appeared in Siberia and northern China between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago, while in Europe they did about 26,000 years ago. This raised the question of what tools and techniques were used by prehistoric groups to make form-fitting clothing before the invention of sewing needles.

The archaeological remains found at the site, attributed to the Aurignacian period, and the radiocarbon dating obtained indicate that the observed drilling technique was used 39,600 years ago by modern humans living on the east coast of the Iberian Peninsula. Thus, the study reveals that, 14,000 years before the introduction of sewing needles in Europe, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers could make tight-fitting leather goods and wear them during harsh weather events. This discovery provides essential new data for understanding otherwise inaccessible Paleolithic sewing practices by studying the tools used to pierce skin.

«The Canyars deposit corresponds to a cold climatic moment; in fact, it corresponds to a moment of maximum climatic rigor, with lower temperatures and aridity. For this reason, the manufacture of clothing helped human populations to withstand low temperatures”, explains Joan Daura.

The excavations at the site have been carried out by the Archeology and Paleontology Service of the Generalitat of Catalonia and the Gavà Town Hall. (Source: UB)

The study is titled “A 39,600-year-old leather punch board from Canyars, Gavà, Spain”. And it has been published in the academic journal Science Advances.