TECHNOLOGY

The String Revolution

~41,000 years ago or more

Palaeolithic · Upper Palaeolithic · Last glacial

Most of what our ancestors made was never stone: it was fibre, and it rotted. A tiny three-ply cord twisted from inner bark fibres, preserved on a Neanderthal stone tool at Abri du Maras, is the oldest direct proof of string. It implies rope, bags and nets, and the grasp of pairs, sets and numbers that plying demands. By 30,000 years ago, at Dzudzuana in Georgia, people were spinning, dyeing and knotting wild flax; the delicate eyed needles that come later point to a taste for finer sewing, and perhaps to layered and decorated dress.

Why it matters

String is the invisible infrastructure of every ancient life: it hafts the spear, hangs the bead, nets the fish, ties the raft, and hardly any of it survives. One waterlogged cord fragment therefore rewrites the inventory of entire eras, and puts complex, multi-component technology in Neanderthal hands. Eyed needles may carry the story further: once a garment could be sewn with care and worn to be seen, warmth was no longer all that clothing was for.

Dating & uncertainty

The oldest direct find is a three-ply cord fragment on a stone tool from Abri du Maras, France, in layers of roughly 52,000 to 41,000 years: Neanderthal work. Spun, dyed and knotted flax fibres follow at Dzudzuana in the Caucasus, 32,000 to 26,000 years ago. String itself is surely far older than its oldest survivor; almost nothing so perishable ever lasts.

Sources

1. Hardy et al. (2020), Scientific Reports · Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implicationsdoi:10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w
2. Kvavadze et al. (2009), Science · 30,000-year-old wild flax fibersdoi:10.1126/science.1175404
3. Gilligan, d'Errico et al. (2024), Science Advances · Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dressdoi:10.1126/sciadv.adp2887

Our species’ history as one day

20:52:343 h 7 min before midnight

if the 315,000 years of Homo sapiens were compressed into a single day