These Delicate Needles Made From Animal Bones May Have Helped Prehistoric Humans Sew Warm Winter Clothing

Archaeologists in Wyoming have uncovered needle fragments made out of animal bone, which provide new insight into how Paleoindian North Americans survived the last ice age.

The fragments were discovered during excavations at La Prele, an archaeological site in Converse County. Researchers dug a series of small test pits to identify areas that held a dense concentration of artifacts, per CNN’s Katie Hunt. Then, using a fine mesh screen, they sifted through sediment.

According to their recent study published in the journal PLOS One, the researchers ultimately unearthed 32 bone needle fragments linked to the early Paleoindian period (between roughly 13,500 and 12,000 years ago).

The team was surprised to learn that the bones came from a variety of smaller animals, such as rabbits, bobcats, red foxes, mountain lions, lynx and the now-extinct American cheetah.

“We had assumed they would be made out of bison or mammoth bone, which comprise most of the animal bones found at La Prele and other sites of its age in the High Plains and Rocky Mountains of North America,” lead author Spencer Pelton, the Wyoming state archaeologist, tells CNN. “It was extremely surprising that these needles were made out of small carnivores.”

Experts examined the needles using mass spectrometry, which measures molecules’ mass-to-charge ratio, and an imaging technique called micro-CT scanning. They also compared the bones’ peptides to peptides from the bones of other animals that lived in the region at the time.

The researchers say that delicate needles made from smaller animal bones were important for survival during the last ice age because they helped humans sew tailored garments with smaller seams that insulated the body from the cold. No examples of Paleoindian clothing have survived, so researchers look to indirect evidence to determine what such garments may have looked like.

“They were likely comparable to similar garments worn by the Inuit, able to withstand the cold and windy conditions of Wyoming’s last ice age,” Pelton tells Popular Science’s Laura Baisas.

Ian Gilligan, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney who has studied eyed needles but wasn’t involved in the research, tells CNN that humans would have found making needles from the bones of larger animals more difficult.

“For hunter-gatherers, crafting needles to sew tailored clothes is a time-consuming task, so any strategy that makes the manufacture of needles more efficient will have survival advantages,” he says.

Historians think the artifacts at La Prele are linked to the Clovis culture, one of the oldest known human cultures in North America. Previous excavations have found evidence that a mammoth was killed or scavenged at the site, according to a statement from the University of Wyoming. Earlier this year, researchers at the site discovered a bead carved from the bone of a hare—the oldest bead ever found in the Americas.

“Once equipped with such garments, modern humans had the capacity to expand their range to places from which they were previously excluded due to the threat of hypothermia or death from exposure,” write the researchers in the study.

They add: “Our results suggest that North American early Paleoindians had direct access to fur-bearing predators, likely from trapping, and represent some of the most detailed evidence yet discovered for Paleoindian garments.”

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Julia Binswanger is a freelance arts and culture reporter based in Chicago. Her work has been featured in WBEZ, Chicago magazine, Rebellious magazine and PC magazine.