[This April, 2020, all “unnecessary businesses” are closed and among them all those clothing stores with their spring and summer clothing lines now unavailable except by mail order. Is it time to reflect on why so many with closets filled to crush limits, actually need more clothes? Don’t many people have closets reaching critical density? What is the origin of this runaway consumerism, this need to buy more clothes?]
The recent discovery of fibers (fibres) wound together to make a cord attributed to some anonymous (Hey, aren’t they all anonymous?) Neanderthal who lived between 42,000 and 52,000 years ago (give or take a week), means that our “cousin species” had skills similar to our own.* Since the earliest human-made (Am I allowed to say “manmade”?) cord dates to only 19,000 years ago, is it not possible that some early human (also anonymous) learned the skill from a Neanderthal? And think what that led to: Not just the wearing of clothes, but the wearing of “fashions” from Versace, Hilfiger, Klein, Lacroix, Chanel, Schiaparelli, Armani, de Givenchy, Lanvin, Prada, de la Renta, Cardin, Lauren, Valentino, Wang, Saint Laurent, and so many more that their number almost rivals the population of politicians. What if humans inherited or learned fashion from Neanderthals, the first known weavers? Such is a mystery of our deep past. And a parallel to the mystery of cord-making’s origin is the question of whether or not Neanderthals could sing chords barbershop-style.
According to several reports, the Kebara 2 hyoid belonging to some anonymous Neanderthal who left his bones lying around in an Israeli cave some 60,000 years ago indicates that the individual probably had the capacity to speak very much as we do (or very little as we do, depending on the nature of the comparison and the side of the controversy about ancient hyoids and speech). If one reads a study by Ruggero D’Anastasio and others, one can reach the conclusion that Neanderthal speech was not only possible, but also probable.* And Dan Dediu, derives a similar qualified conclusion from his study of the Neanderthal hyoid bone.**
Anyway, if Neanderthals would weave and speak, what would they talk about while they were weaving? A guess:
“Ug, watcha makin’?”
“Just some cord.”
“What you gonna use it for?”
“Not quite sure, but if it lasts as long as a Glad bag floating in the ocean, it’s gonna be my legacy.”
“Anyway, Ug, when you finish that cord, you wanna join me and my group?”
“What group?”
“We call ourselves The Neanders by the Meander.”
“Why ‘Meander’?”
“Well, we sing down by the big river bend.”
“Can I sing? I guess I never really tried it.”
“Yeah. You can. You have to try. It’s just like learning to whistle.”
“What’s a whistle.”
“A sound that I make when I purse my lips and blow air over my tongue to call my only barely domesticated wolf.”
“Wait, you have a wolf?”
“Not really a wolf. Doggone it if I know what to call it. It follows me around, brings me a stick to throw at a bird, and makes a noise when a bear approaches, but sometimes it runs off.”
“Hey, I got an idea. Wanna keep your wolf close? Why doncha use some of my cord? You can tie it around its neck and around a tree with knots.”
“Why does the tree have to have knots? What am I supposed to do? Tie it or not?”
“No, not ‘not,’ ‘knot.’ It’s a thing I make when I twirl around my cord and make some loops. I couldn’t think of a use for it until now.”
“Are we becoming civilized like those sapiens people? They think they are so smart. But look, we can sing, and I’ve never seen one of them make a cord. I’ll bet they’re thousands of years away from making one.”
“Primitives. But I have to hand it to them, they certainly can talk. In fact, that’s what they mostly do, talk, talk, talk. Good thing they can’t do it over long distances or pretty much the whole world would be enveloped by incessant talking, most of it without a purpose. And what’s with all that verse? And singing? Gosh, gimme some quiet to do some meander knitting, a stitch in my time saves me from all that rhyme. So, no, I’m not gonna join your Neanders by the Meander group.”
“Okay, suit yourself.”
“Wait, whadya just say?”
“I said, ‘Suit yourself.’”
“Hmmmm. Just got another idea. What if I took not just a few cords, but many and wound them together? I could make a cord suit, something to wear.”
“Not bad. What’s next, dyeing it?”
“Just got another idea. What if I made a bunch of colored cord outfits? I bet I could barter with those smarty sapiens. They’re so vain, always looking in the lake to see what they look like.”
“Sounds like a plan. I think you’ve got something there. Show me how to make those cords. Now that we know we can talk, we can make fun of our human customers; we can keep ourselves in stitches as we stitch.”
And thus, dear human, some 42 to 52 millennia after that first cord, is how you became so enamored of and addicted to fashion and why you have a closet overstuffed with clothes. From that one cord a whole industry developed with the sole purpose of adding more clothes to your closet. Want to talk about it?
Hardy, B.L., Moncel, M., Kerfant, C. et al. Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications. Sci Rep 10, 4889 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w Original in PDF found online at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w#citeas
**Hogenboom, Melissa. Neanderthals could speak like humans, study suggests. BBC news. 20 Dec. 2013.
The recent discovery of fibers (fibres) wound together to make a cord attributed to some anonymous (Hey, aren’t they all anonymous?) Neanderthal who lived between 42,000 and 52,000 years ago (give or take a week), means that our “cousin species” had skills similar to our own.* Since the earliest human-made (Am I allowed to say “manmade”?) cord dates to only 19,000 years ago, is it not possible that some early human (also anonymous) learned the skill from a Neanderthal? And think what that led to: Not just the wearing of clothes, but the wearing of “fashions” from Versace, Hilfiger, Klein, Lacroix, Chanel, Schiaparelli, Armani, de Givenchy, Lanvin, Prada, de la Renta, Cardin, Lauren, Valentino, Wang, Saint Laurent, and so many more that their number almost rivals the population of politicians. What if humans inherited or learned fashion from Neanderthals, the first known weavers? Such is a mystery of our deep past. And a parallel to the mystery of cord-making’s origin is the question of whether or not Neanderthals could sing chords barbershop-style.
According to several reports, the Kebara 2 hyoid belonging to some anonymous Neanderthal who left his bones lying around in an Israeli cave some 60,000 years ago indicates that the individual probably had the capacity to speak very much as we do (or very little as we do, depending on the nature of the comparison and the side of the controversy about ancient hyoids and speech). If one reads a study by Ruggero D’Anastasio and others, one can reach the conclusion that Neanderthal speech was not only possible, but also probable.* And Dan Dediu, derives a similar qualified conclusion from his study of the Neanderthal hyoid bone.**
Anyway, if Neanderthals would weave and speak, what would they talk about while they were weaving? A guess:
“Ug, watcha makin’?”
“Just some cord.”
“What you gonna use it for?”
“Not quite sure, but if it lasts as long as a Glad bag floating in the ocean, it’s gonna be my legacy.”
“Anyway, Ug, when you finish that cord, you wanna join me and my group?”
“What group?”
“We call ourselves The Neanders by the Meander.”
“Why ‘Meander’?”
“Well, we sing down by the big river bend.”
“Can I sing? I guess I never really tried it.”
“Yeah. You can. You have to try. It’s just like learning to whistle.”
“What’s a whistle.”
“A sound that I make when I purse my lips and blow air over my tongue to call my only barely domesticated wolf.”
“Wait, you have a wolf?”
“Not really a wolf. Doggone it if I know what to call it. It follows me around, brings me a stick to throw at a bird, and makes a noise when a bear approaches, but sometimes it runs off.”
“Hey, I got an idea. Wanna keep your wolf close? Why doncha use some of my cord? You can tie it around its neck and around a tree with knots.”
“Why does the tree have to have knots? What am I supposed to do? Tie it or not?”
“No, not ‘not,’ ‘knot.’ It’s a thing I make when I twirl around my cord and make some loops. I couldn’t think of a use for it until now.”
“Are we becoming civilized like those sapiens people? They think they are so smart. But look, we can sing, and I’ve never seen one of them make a cord. I’ll bet they’re thousands of years away from making one.”
“Primitives. But I have to hand it to them, they certainly can talk. In fact, that’s what they mostly do, talk, talk, talk. Good thing they can’t do it over long distances or pretty much the whole world would be enveloped by incessant talking, most of it without a purpose. And what’s with all that verse? And singing? Gosh, gimme some quiet to do some meander knitting, a stitch in my time saves me from all that rhyme. So, no, I’m not gonna join your Neanders by the Meander group.”
“Okay, suit yourself.”
“Wait, whadya just say?”
“I said, ‘Suit yourself.’”
“Hmmmm. Just got another idea. What if I took not just a few cords, but many and wound them together? I could make a cord suit, something to wear.”
“Not bad. What’s next, dyeing it?”
“Just got another idea. What if I made a bunch of colored cord outfits? I bet I could barter with those smarty sapiens. They’re so vain, always looking in the lake to see what they look like.”
“Sounds like a plan. I think you’ve got something there. Show me how to make those cords. Now that we know we can talk, we can make fun of our human customers; we can keep ourselves in stitches as we stitch.”
And thus, dear human, some 42 to 52 millennia after that first cord, is how you became so enamored of and addicted to fashion and why you have a closet overstuffed with clothes. From that one cord a whole industry developed with the sole purpose of adding more clothes to your closet. Want to talk about it?
Hardy, B.L., Moncel, M., Kerfant, C. et al. Direct evidence of Neanderthal fibre technology and its cognitive and behavioral implications. Sci Rep 10, 4889 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61839-w Original in PDF found online at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-61839-w#citeas
**Hogenboom, Melissa. Neanderthals could speak like humans, study suggests. BBC news. 20 Dec. 2013.
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