This is the oldest known string. It was made by a Neandertal (2024)

In a new twist on Neandertals’ Stone Age accomplishments,our close evolutionary relatives wound bark fibers into strings that could havebeen used to make clothes, rope, nets and other practical but perishable items,a new study suggests.

A fragment of a string made fromthree bark fibers was found attached to a stone tool at a French Neandertalsite. That tool was embedded in sediment dating from 52,000 to 41,000 yearsago, say paleoanthropologist Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio,and colleagues.

Researchers previously had unearthed stone tools attached toindividual, twisted fibers at the site, France’s Abri du Maras rock-shelter. Thoseindividual fibers once may have been part of cords, too. But as a piece of anactual woven string, the new discovery — described April 9 in Scientific Reports — representsthe oldest direct evidence of string making.

Previously, the earliest known cords were made by humans inwestern Asia, who twistedwild flax fibers into twine as early as around 32,000 years ago (SN: 9/10/09).

The ancient string found at the French Neandertal site may havebeen part of a cord that tied the stone tool to a handle, or may have come froma bag that once contained the tool, the researchers speculate.

Ancient string at Abri du Maras joins recentevidence suggesting that Neandertals thought and behaved no differentlythan Stone Age hom*o sapiens did (SN: 3/26/20). Microscopic and molecularstudies of the Abri du Maras string indicate that its fibers come from theinner bark of a tree such as pine. Neandertal string makers must have knownabout trees’ seasonal growth patterns, the researchers say. The best times forharvesting inner-bark fibers are from early spring to early summer, when fibersincrease in size and thickness due to tree growth.

And the team suggests that a basic understanding of numberswould have also been needed to count predetermined numbers of fibers used tomake strings, as well as to follow the numerical patterns in strings or cordsneeded to construct objects such as bags and nets.