Stone Age technologies like rope and twine

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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

Fiber technologies, including rope and twine, were immensely important in the daily lives of early humans, yet they are largely absent from the archaeological record.

Researchers are weaving together new insights from the traces these fibers have left behind, as they piece together how such materials were used in ancient communities.

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

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