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New Moon – July 2017

Our life in stitches, according to the archaeological record, began during the upper Paleolithic. The Gravettian hunting and gathering culture, living along the ice sheet edges of northern Europe, began to create and innovate. Pieces of bone and stone were fashioned into tools, beads, effigies, and adornments. Humans twisted fibers into string to increase tensile strength and started a string revolution.

Strands of fibrous materials are a rare find in archaeological records reaching so far back to our earliest human endeavors. Fibers tend to deteriorate and decompose. Yet, preserved within a lump of clay discovered in the caves of Lascaux, France the earliest fossilized evidence of string is revealed. A molded pattern of long deteriorated multi-plied  fiber cording left an unmistakable pattern fossilized in clay. This pattern revealed the remarkable skills of Paleolithic string makers. Two-ply strands of plant fibers were twisted together, then three strands of twisted two-ply were twisted together in the opposite direction creating strong cording – cording to cinch, to tie, to weave, to stitch into functional things. String skirts would become the fashion rage from the Paleolithic into the Bronze Age. (Wayland Barber, Elizabeth: Women’s Work – the First 20,000 years – Women, Cloth and Society in Early Times.)

I imagine the excitement of the archaeologist who discovered the earliest evidence of twisted plant fibers imprinted in clay in the wee hours of morning in Lascaux France. I imagine even farther back in time to the person who created string by rolling fibers between palm and thigh, then twisted them together into long, strong lengths of cording. Although our string manufacturing processes today is mechanized and mass produced, I am entwined with history and connected to these early innovators every time I pull needle and thread through woven fabric. We are the heir of a rich textile history twisted, stitched, and woven through time.