GAMBIER, OHIO—Science News reports that a fragment of string made of twisted inner tree-bark fibers has been found on a stone tool unearthed at a Neanderthal site in southeastern France by Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College and his colleagues. The tool was recovered from sediment dated to between 52,000 and 41,000 years ago in the Abri du Maras rock shelter, where individual twisted fibers had been recovered in the past. Now measuring less than one-quarter of an inch long, the string may have fastened the tool to a handle, or it may have been woven into a bag that held the tool, the researchers explained. Neanderthal string-makers would have had to understand mathematical concepts and the growth cycles of trees, they added. The previously oldest-known piece of string, made of twisted wild flax fibers and dated to about 32,000 years ago, was discovered in western Asia. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Scientifc Reports. For more, go to "Neanderthal Tool Time."
