This image reveals a bone tool from Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco that was utilized for leather working 120,000 to 90,000 years ago. Credit: Jacopo Niccolò Cerasoni
A new research study led by Arizona State University paleoanthropologist Curtis Marean and ASU doctoral graduate Emily Hallett information more than 60 tools made from bone and one tool made from the tooth of a cetacean, that includes dolphins, cetaceans, and whales. These finds, initially unearthed from Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco in 2011, are extremely suggestive proxy proof for the earliest clothing in the archaeological record and vouch for the pan-African development of complicated culture and specialized tool manufacture.
The development of clothes, and the development of the tools needed to produce it, are milestones in the story of mankind. Not just are they indicative of strides in cognitive and cultural advancement, archaeologists also believe they were necessary in enabling early humans to expand their niche from Pleistocene Africa into new environments with new ecological challenges. As furs and other organic materials used to make clothes are unlikely to be protected in the archaeological record, the origin of clothes is still inadequately comprehended.
Contrabandiers Cave, Morocco, area along the shoreline. Credit: Google maps
The existing research study released this week in iScience, which reports on a worked bone assemblage found near the Atlantic Coast of Morocco, offers strong proof for the manufacture of clothing as far back as 120,000 years back.
” The Contrebandiers assemblage now changes Blombos as the oldest bone tool assemblage and industry,” said Marean, who is associate director with the ASU Institute of Human Origins and Foundation Professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, along with Honorary Professor and International Deputy Director, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela University.
As part of her research with the Institute of Human Origins and the Lise Meitner Pan-African Evolution Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH), Hallett was studying the vertebrate remains from Contrabandiers Cave deposits dating from 120,000 to 90,000 years earlier.
Carnivores were skinned for fur and bone tools were then utilized to prepare the furs into pelts. Credit: Jacopo Niccolò Cerasoni 2021
” This was a vital time duration and location for the early members of our species,” says Hallett, “and I was mainly interested in rebuilding the diet plan and habitat niche of individuals who used this cave.”
Amongst the roughly 12,000 bone fragments, Hallett found more than 60 animal bones that had been formed by people for usage as tools. At the same time, Hallett determined a pattern of cut marks on the carnivore bones suggesting that, rather than processing them for meat, the occupants of Contrabandiers Cave were skinning them for fur.
Hallett compared the tools she recognized with others in the archaeological record and discovered that they had the same shapes and use marks as leather working tools described by other researchers,
” The mix of carnivore bones with skinning marks and bone tools likely used for fur processing supply highly suggestive proxy proof for the earliest clothes in the archaeological record,” states Hallett, “however given the level of expertise in this assemblage, these tools are most likely part of a larger custom with earlier examples that havent yet been discovered.”
Excavation at Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco. Credit: Emily Yuko Hallett 2009
Concealed among the bone fragments was the idea of a tooth from a whale or dolphin bearing marks constant with use as a pressure flaker– a tool utilized for forming stone tools. Given the age of the find, this represents the earliest documented usage of a marine mammal tooth by humans and the just verified marine mammal stay from the Pleistocene of North Africa.
” Once once again, we see that complex innovations such as bone tools are just associated with water adjustments at the origin point of modern humans,” kept in mind Marean. “The coast was vital.”
” The Contrebandiers Cave bone tools demonstrate that by approximately 120,000 years ago, Homo sapiens started to intensify using bone to make official tools and use them for particular tasks, consisting of leather and fur working,” Hallett summarizes. “This versatility appears to be at the root of our species and not a particular that emerged after growths into Eurasia.”
In the future, Hallett wants to work together with other researchers to determine comparable skinning patterns in the assemblages they study and gain a better understanding of the origins and diffusion of this habits.
Referral: “A worked bone assemblage from 120,000– 90,000-year-old deposits at Contrebandiers Cave, Atlantic Coast, Morocco” 16 September 2021, iScience.DOI: 10.1016/ j.isci.2021.102988.