Stone Age technologies like rope and twine

Adapted · A2 · Graded story · 0:12 · A2

A1 A2 Original B1 B2 C1 C2

0:00

four pairs of hands spin cattail fibers through a replica of a Stone Age perforated baton — In the lab, archaeologists showed how they could rapidly produce thick rope by threading cattail fibers through a replica of a Stone Age tool. N.J. Conard & V. Rots / Science Advances 2024

Rope and other fiber tools are mostly missing in old digs. They were very important to early humans.

Researchers are learning new things from the traces left behind by early people.

a narrow instrument of wood with three holes and one hole that's incomplete due to time damage, seen in three views — The Hohle Fels lochstab was made more than 35,000 years ago. Researchers rebuilt the baton by fitting together more than a dozen buried fragments. A clue to its function was the spiral grooves carved around the holes, which the team later showed could be used to align, twist and combine plant fibers into rope. The object dates to a period when prehistoric humans began creating more sophisticated tools and artworks. University of Tübingen

an illustrated graphic shows stones attached to sticks with strings to create a hafted barbed arrowhead, an Acheulean axe, a stone dagger and a spear — Using string or cord to attach stone tools to a handle or shaft—known as hafting—transformed the sharpened rocks into new instruments with expanded functions, including axes, arrows and spears. The stone dagger resembles one carried by Ötzi the Iceman. Knowable Magazine

three photographs of wood artifacts with rope included — Most items produced by the Wola people of Papua New Guinea include some kind of fiber component. Shown are pan pipes bound with vegetable fiber (top), a string bag (bottom left) and an ax with cane lashing (bottom right). © The Trustees of the British Museum / CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Knowable

Comments

0

Share what you noticed, understood, or still find difficult in this article.

Loading comments…