What if we called it the Flax Age instead of the Iron Age?

Re:What if we called it the Flax Age instead of the Iron Age? by cardiffspaceman on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @01:21PM (#21586703)

So here's a question about flax, and other things.

It seems like there is a technological progression in clothing from "I take the unprocessed hides from the animals I kill or the leaves and vines around me and just wear them" to "I tan hides to make leather" to "I grow flax or cotton to make fibers and fabric"

Actual question: Do these technologies correspond to lengthy time frames in large areas in such a way that it could be useful to identify a "Leather Age/Culture" or "Plant fiber Age/Culture"?

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Re:What if we called it the Flax Age instead of the Iron Age? by Merrill on Wednesday November 20, 2019 @01:46PM (#21587026)

Sewing is a vital technology, since only with sewn, multi-layer clothing was cold-intolerant Homo sapiens able to colonize the middle and upper latitudes of the Eurasian continent during the last Ice Age. In the referenced article, it mentions needles from about 35,000 years ago. Presumably the earliest garments were furs stitched with sinew threads, but plant fiber thread from 34,000 has been found in Georgia. The archaeological problem is that bone needles and organic fibers do not endure to the present like stone and copper.

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