Spun, dyed and knotted wild flax fibres from Dzudzuana
Fibras de lino silvestre hiladas, teñidas y anudadas de Dzudzuana
- Date
- c. 32 ka · confidence medium
- Place
- Dzudzuana Cave, Imereti, Georgia
- Credited to
- Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers of the Caucasus
- Field
- Tools
What was discovered
Wild flax fibres twisted, some knotted and dyed with plant pigments, turned up in layers some 30,000-36,000 years old. They are the oldest evidence of plant fibre being worked and coloured to make cords, baskets or garments.
Published in Science (2009) from fibres preserved as microremains in sediment; their exact use (rope, basketry, clothing) is inferred, not observed.
What it led to
- use of fine plant fibres for cords and tool bindings
- earliest trace of textile dyeing with plant colourants
- technical basis preceding the systematic flax spinning of the Neolithic