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From: RonO <rokimoto557@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: 40,000 year old eyed sewing needles
Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2024 14:31:59 -0500
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https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/08/science/eyed-needles-fashion-prehistoric-clothing-scn/index.html

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp2887

It looks like eyed sewing needles were invented around 40,000 years ago 
(deep into the ice age) in Asia.  The authors speculate that the 
invention may signify two major developments: "The emergence of 
underwear in layered garment assemblages, and/or a transition in 
adornment from body modification to decorating clothing."  They do not 
explain what they mean by "underwear" but cite a previous paper by one 
of the authors from 2010 that is paywalled, with no description in the 
abstract.  The fact is that sewing hides together and adorning such 
clothing does not require eyed needles as the authors do concede in the 
paper.  Eyed needles just make sewing less of a pain in the butt (you 
don't have to keep filling the knotched needle or forcing the "thread" 
through the holes that you make with an awl, but the time limiting step 
is likely still punching the initial holes in the hide or shell or other 
adornment with the awl.

The authors seem to miss an obvious factor for why eyed needles are 
better than knotched needles to get the "thread" through in sewing 
clothing.  Eyed needles are pretty much required for sewing cloth made 
of fibers.  The simple knotched needle would catch and fray the fiberous 
cloth, but the eyed needle would allow efficient sewing of fiberous 
cloth.  This just means that the invention would have been required if 
humans had started to make woven fabric out of animal hair or plant 
material.  Utzi had an insulating layer of plant fiber under his leather 
clothing.  My take is that the eyed needle may signal the start of 
weaving, and sewing together woven cloth.  It may have been thick and 
rough blanket like material, and you would need eyed needles to sew it 
together to make fitted clothing.  The undercoat of a wooly mammoth is 
supposed to be very fine and soft and would have probably made kashmir 
type yarn.  The mammoth skin may have been too heavy to use for 
clothing, but scraping off the hair would have produced a lot of yarn.

Ron Okimoto