6.2 MM WIRE CHANGING WORLD HISTORY
As an intro to the project, I have started on the historical background of the nettle thread. Or thread and textiles in general. And what has really surprised me are all the stories that belong to something as natural and everyday as – thread! Man-made thread testifies to evolution, power, survival and intelligence.
(Illustration)
Unfortunately, plant fiber thread is not what you water in. This is of course sad, but also beautiful, considering that they are materials that naturally break down over time. With today's technology, we see that fiber one previously took to be hemp or flax, can turn out to be nettle. A study by an international research team led by Bodil Holst at UiB shows that plant fiber textiles from the Bronze Age were also made from wild plants such as nettle.
The world's oldest thread is not man-made!
Our ancestors must have known the usefulness of every stump and every straw. Both with regard to food, but also for health and beneficial use. Great-grandfather and great-grandmother rubbed nettle between their hands and knotted ropes and fishing nets. This may have been the first step towards textiles. And from there, the path to baskets, mats, nets, bags and textiles is short.
The world's oldest thread is 6.2 mm long and 0.5 mm thick. It was made of plant fiber and was found under a stone ax in a cave in the Abri du Maras in southern France. The thread is estimated to be between 41,000 - 52,000 years old and was twisted between the hands of one of our extinct competitors, the Neanderthals .
Before you read on, I ask you to stop and visualize the thread. The length of 6.2 mm is no big deal, smaller than the width of a little fingernail, and with a quarter of the thickness of the wood in a match. This tiny thread changes the view of evolution!
We do not know why Neanderthals died out, but one theory is that they were not adaptable due to a lack of intelligence. But when the researchers studied the thread, they found that it consisted of three twisted strands. This involves mathematical technology where the person who made the thread has been able to count, assemble and, not least, plan. The thread was probably used to attach the stone to a handle. We are therefore talking about product development and engineering, which both require intelligence and cognitive abilities, which in turn means that we have to change our perception of evolution!
In the Dzudzuana Cave in Georgia, 30,000-year-old man-made plant threads made from wild flax were found. The incredible thing is that they were colored yellow, red, blue, violet, black, brown, green and khaki. In my world, this means that they spent time and resources on beauty and - communication ? But the question is whether colored textiles were for everyone, or whether this something that indicated power and the upper class?
I will follow that thread in later posts!
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