On the island of Palawan in the Philippines, a cave has yielded reams of ancient artifacts, including thousands of stone tools. No traces of hewn trees or stripped bark or carved meat remain to hint at what the tools may have been used for. But they do bear signs of wear and tear, prehistoric marks from the tasks they once aided.
“I wanted to learn from the experts of the forest,” says Xhauflair, of the University of the Philippines Diliman.
Thanks to that collaboration, some of the oldest evidence of fiber making in the tropics now goes back to 39,000 years, the researchers report June 30 in PLOS ONE. Access to fiber technologies may have opened up all sorts of possibilities for nets, traps and boats, the scientists speculate (SN: 8/28/19).
One of the first steps in the study involved securing an introduction to the Pala’wan. Xhauflair presented her research plan to the councils of elders of several villages. The councils granted her and her colleagues permission to live with Pala’wan communities for three months and record craftspeople as they used tools for various tasks, including processing plant-based fibers.
2023-06-30 13:00:00
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