North American Early Paleoindians almost 13,000 years ago used the bones of canids, felids, and hares to create needles at the La Prele site, in modern-day Wyoming, potentially to make the tailored fur garments which enabled their dispersal into these colder climates.
We often forget how bone was an important material for people in the past, used to create everyday items, thus reflecting the material culture of a certain era. A new study, published in the open source journal PLoS ONE, identifies species and element used to produce Paleolithic bone needles. They used Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) and Micro-CT scanning to establish that bone needles at the ca. 12,900 BP La Prele site (Wyoming, USA) were produced from the bones of canids, felids, and hares.
According to the authors of the study, the needles also represent some of the most detailed evidence yet discovered for Paleoindian garments.
The usage of needles, found in archaeological sites c. 40,000 BP, is indirect evidence for the advent of tailored garments at that time, and they partially enabled modern human dispersal to northern latitudes and to the Americas ca. 14,500 BP.
Bibliographic information:
Pelton SR, Litynski M, Allaun SA, Buckley M, Govaerts J, Schoborg T, et al. (2024) Early Paleoindian use of canids, felids, and hares for bone needle production at the La Prele site, Wyoming, USA,PLoS ONE 19(11): e0313610, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0313610
Funding: Funding for this project includes the National Science Foundation (award #1947297), the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, the Quest Archaeological Research Program at Southern Methodist University, the National Geographic Society, Ed and Shirley Cheramy, and the George C. Frison Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Press release from PLoS ONE.
