A thread to the past
Adhering to the underside of a 6-centimeter-long stone flake, archaeologists found a tiny fragment of string. Discovered at the Abri du Maras, a rock shelter in the Ardèche region of southern France, this is the oldest direct evidence of fiber technology ever found. The site itself has layers of occupation stretching back hundreds of thousands of years, but this particular find dates to between 41,000 and 52,000 years ago. This places it squarely in the Middle Paleolithic, a period associated with Neanderthals.
The fragment itself is minuscule, measuring just 6.2 millimeters long and 0.5 millimeters wide. Under powerful microscopes, researchers led by paleoanthropologist Bruce Hardy identified its structure. It is a three-ply cord. This means its makers first took bundles of fibers and twisted them counter-clockwise, an action known as an 'S-twist'. They then took three of these twisted bundles and plied them together in the opposite direction, a clockwise 'Z-twist', to form a single, stronger cord. This deliberate, multi-stage process is identical to how modern twine and rope are constructed and is impossible to create by accident.
The fabric of cognition
Spectroscopy and microscopic analysis revealed the cord is made from cellulose fibers, sourced from the inner bark of a coniferous tree. Making such a cord requires a deep understanding of the environment. The creators would need to know which trees provided the best fibers and the optimal season—likely spring or early summer—to harvest them.
The existence of a three-ply cord has important implications for understanding Neanderthal intelligence. The manufacturing process demonstrates an understanding of mathematical concepts like pairs and sets. It also is the foundation for a host of other technologies that rarely survive in the archaeological record. With string, you can build nets for hunting, fishing lines, snares, and bags to carry tools and food. It allows for the hafting of stone points onto spears, creating more effective composite tools. Before this discovery, the oldest direct evidence for cordage was a 19,000-year-old fragment from a site in Israel. The Abri du Maras find pushes back the timeline for this technology by more than 20,000 years and firmly attributes its invention to Neanderthals.