Re: 40,000 year old eyed sewing needles

On 7/8/2024 2:47 PM, JTEM wrote:

  RonO wrote:

It looks like eyed sewing needles were invented around 40,000 years ago (deep into the ice age) in Asia.  The authors speculate that the invention may signify two major developments: "The emergence of underwear in layered garment assemblages, and/or a transition in adornment from body modification to decorating clothing."  They do not explain what they mean by "underwear" but cite a previous paper by one of the authors from 2010 that is paywalled, with no description in the abstract.  The fact is that sewing hides together and adorning such clothing does not require eyed needles as the authors do concede in the paper.  Eyed needles just make sewing less of a pain in the butt (you don't have to keep filling the knotched needle or forcing the "thread" through the holes that you make with an awl, but the time limiting step is likely still punching the initial holes in the hide or shell or other adornment with the awl.

 But wouldn't you agree that this has all the hallmarks of a preservation
bias?
 Clearly if you're going to romp around cold, snowy regions you're going
to need clothing. And shoes. But...
 Did you know that the very first condom, or one of the first examples
of a condom is found in ancient Egypt BUT, it appears to have been used
to protect the willy from insects and the sun, not as birth control.
 Work with me here...
 Is it at all possible that clothing may have been invented for similar
reasons?  In other words, NOT to tramp around in the snow but to prevent
sunburn and insect bites all over the body?
 There have been many who have argued that red ochre was used by early
(archaic) Homo NOT as a decoration but for protection... a role that
may have been replaced by clothing?
 So, as always, I have to twist these things around. They say, "Look!
Sewing needles! Clothes!" Fine. What did it replace?
 We've had such conversations elsewhere, like with animal hide tanning
and felt making...
 Could the Neanderthals have been tanning hides tens of thousands of
yours earlier?  Of course they could. But did they?  What would the
evidence look like?
 The issue, of course, is that if sewing needles are associated with
cold environments then they either had something else before the
sewing needles, or entry into those cold regions had to wait until
someone who did NOT live in that colder religion invented the sewing
needle...
 

The authors admit that humans were sewing clothes together for a very long time before the invention of the eyed needle.  It isn't a major invention, and they also admit that preservation bias could limit what has been preserved.  Such small implements may have degraded in the Southern hemisphere (often warmer than the North), but in the Northerly regions of Asia we have bone fragments that we can extract DNA from.  We haven't been able to get really old DNA out of the bones from Southern Asia and Africa.
The older sewing tools would work just fine for sewing hides.  Eyed needles are pretty much required for sewing fiberous cloth.
Ron Okimoto