Stone tools in Filipino cave were used to make ropes 40,000 years ago
Marks on stone tools found in the Tabon Caves on Palawan island in the Philippines suggest they were used for processing plant fibres, allowing the creation of ropes, baskets and other items
By Soumya Sagar
30 June 2023
Inside the Tabon Caves on Palawan island in the Philippines
Hemis/Alamy Stock Photo
The prehistoric inhabitants of the Philippines were able to make ropes and baskets from plant fibres almost 40,000 years ago, according to an analysis of stone tools. The find suggests the people living then may have been able to produce more sophisticated constructions, such as boats and buildings, than previously thought.
“Mastering fibre technology was a very important step in human development. It allows to assemble different objects together and to build houses, make composite objects, hunt with bows,” says Hermine Xhauflair at the University of the Philippines Diliman. “Eventually, the existence of ropes allows people to attach a sail to canoes and create boats that can be used to go very far away.”
Because of this, archaeologists are keen to study ancient fibres, but their organic nature means few have been preserved – the oldest ever found is a 50,000-year-old piece of string thought to have been made by Neanderthals.
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This lack of specimens means archaeologists often have to rely on indirect evidence for textile production, such as depiction in art, the seeds of fibre plants, or signs of fibre processing on stone tools.
Xhauflair and her colleagues have done just that, in their case analysing 43 stone tools dating from 33,000 to 39,000 years ago that had been excavated from the Tabon Caves on Palawan island in the Philippines.
To see if these tools had been used to make textiles, Xhauflair learned fibre-processing techniques from modern-day Indigenous inhabitants of the island, the Pala’wan people, then used replicas of the tools, which are made from a stone known as red jasper, to thin the fibres from bamboo, palm and other plants. The researchers examined these replica tools with a microscope to look for patterns of wear created by plant processing, then compared these marks with the ancient tools.
