Plant Fibre Processing 77,000 Years Ago

Sibudu Cave in South Africa
Sibudu cave near Durban in the KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa

We have reported in Textile Forum magazine 1/2010 about early traces of fibre processing over 30,000 years ago, found in the Dzudzuana cave in Georgia. Now we heard that already in 2010 important archaeological findings of at least 77,000 years old were known. In the South-African Sibudu cave there were found grass mats, several centimetres thick, with surfaces made by leaves of the Cape Quince (Cryptocarya woodii), whose etheric oils were insect repellent and poison for their larvae. Over thousands of years the cave was inhabited by homo sapiens. The cognitive abilities of this species are discussed more detailed since this finding. Since 1998 scientists like Lyn Wadley from the Johannesburg University are doing research on this site, 40 km north of Durban in the KwaZulu-Natal Province,. During the Mesolitic Period in the south of Africa the population was growing quickly, therefore the early humans started to emigrate from Africa, leaving traces e.g. in Georgia. We anyway assume that the textile processing of materials from nature was going hand in hand with the development of human speech. The development of a grammar and the handling of fibres are showing comparable complex traits.
1. Note: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/sibudu_cave
2. Note: 77,000 Year Old Bedding Discovered Within Threatened South African Excavation Site