“What surprises me is that the indigo dye process was discovered at all and developed independently so early in multiple parts of the world.” That’s a quotation from Jeffrey Splitstoser in an online article by Bruce Bower (ScienceNews). An archaeologist working on Huaca Prieta on Peru’s northern coast, Splitstoser was referring to blue-striped cloth found at the site in 2009. When Splitstoser says “early,” he means 6,000 years ago, about a couple of millennia before Egyptians dyed cloth indigo and three millennia before the ancient Chinese used the color.**
With all the world’s current problems, one might ask why anyone should care to dig around in an old set of structures in South America and why such a “discovery” of a few shredded pieces of fabric should be important in any way. Of course, ask either question to any archaeologist, and you would get a look of dismissal.
You see, we’re not the first of our kind to seek creative variety while wanting to rest on something securely the same. We love patterns while simultaneously we tire of them. More importantly, we are innately curious—thus the many questions arising from the mouths of four-year-olds. We’ve long known about the use of Murex, the mollusk that provided the purple dye (Tyrian purple) now associated with royalty and wealth. The Phoenicians kept that fashion alive and made money from the wealthy throughout the Mediterranean. But on the coast of Peru? It wasn’t the Murex; it was plant dye, discovered, as Splitstoser points out, “independently.”
Now think of your current status. You most likely have some colored clothing. You most likely didn’t dye it yourself unless you wanted to tie-dye a T-shirt for some event. You also most likely haven’t rummaged through Nature looking for dyes—or edible foods. You have most likely lost some of your toddler-age curiosity: You certainly don’t put just anything in your mouth as you did in your toddler-hood. You’ve been both taught and given. There’s little in your physical setting that you don’t in a macro way understand, and unlike a toddler, you might more likely be hesitant when you encounter the “unknown.” Secure inside the small encyclopedia of the familiar and busy with its details, you have little time in your life for experimentation. Who cares where purple comes from? It’s available in cloth, plastics, and metal coatings.
The people of Huaca Prieta didn’t have what you have, so their lives were largely experimental. And before them, way before them, humanity was in its toddler-hood, curious and in the business of putting entries into the encyclopedia you now daily read in your surroundings. Imagine that no one ever taught you what foods to eat. You wander around hungry, pick up a plant, and munch. Poison. Too bad. Some of those primitive Diderots died that way. Your encyclopedia of recipes is relatively safe as a result.
That people long ago experimented has significance beyond the discovery of purple dyes. They made the mistakes in their curious explorations that we don’t need to make. We know in our adult lives what plants to eat, where to get the chemicals we use in food and fashion, and what is dangerous.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you are curious. Maybe you will add a new “color” to human fashion or an entry or two to the encyclopedia that others in the long distant future will read. Don’t expect them to give you more than passing credit, however. I’ve never heard anyone express gratitude to the ancient discoverers of purple dye.
*https://www.sciencenews.org/article/oldest-indigo-dyed-fabric-found?mode=topic&context=43&tgt=nr
**J.C. Splitstoser et al. Early pre-Hispanic use of indigo blue in Peru. Science Advances. Published online September 14, 2016. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1501623.
With all the world’s current problems, one might ask why anyone should care to dig around in an old set of structures in South America and why such a “discovery” of a few shredded pieces of fabric should be important in any way. Of course, ask either question to any archaeologist, and you would get a look of dismissal.
You see, we’re not the first of our kind to seek creative variety while wanting to rest on something securely the same. We love patterns while simultaneously we tire of them. More importantly, we are innately curious—thus the many questions arising from the mouths of four-year-olds. We’ve long known about the use of Murex, the mollusk that provided the purple dye (Tyrian purple) now associated with royalty and wealth. The Phoenicians kept that fashion alive and made money from the wealthy throughout the Mediterranean. But on the coast of Peru? It wasn’t the Murex; it was plant dye, discovered, as Splitstoser points out, “independently.”
Now think of your current status. You most likely have some colored clothing. You most likely didn’t dye it yourself unless you wanted to tie-dye a T-shirt for some event. You also most likely haven’t rummaged through Nature looking for dyes—or edible foods. You have most likely lost some of your toddler-age curiosity: You certainly don’t put just anything in your mouth as you did in your toddler-hood. You’ve been both taught and given. There’s little in your physical setting that you don’t in a macro way understand, and unlike a toddler, you might more likely be hesitant when you encounter the “unknown.” Secure inside the small encyclopedia of the familiar and busy with its details, you have little time in your life for experimentation. Who cares where purple comes from? It’s available in cloth, plastics, and metal coatings.
The people of Huaca Prieta didn’t have what you have, so their lives were largely experimental. And before them, way before them, humanity was in its toddler-hood, curious and in the business of putting entries into the encyclopedia you now daily read in your surroundings. Imagine that no one ever taught you what foods to eat. You wander around hungry, pick up a plant, and munch. Poison. Too bad. Some of those primitive Diderots died that way. Your encyclopedia of recipes is relatively safe as a result.
That people long ago experimented has significance beyond the discovery of purple dyes. They made the mistakes in their curious explorations that we don’t need to make. We know in our adult lives what plants to eat, where to get the chemicals we use in food and fashion, and what is dangerous.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you are curious. Maybe you will add a new “color” to human fashion or an entry or two to the encyclopedia that others in the long distant future will read. Don’t expect them to give you more than passing credit, however. I’ve never heard anyone express gratitude to the ancient discoverers of purple dye.
*https://www.sciencenews.org/article/oldest-indigo-dyed-fabric-found?mode=topic&context=43&tgt=nr
**J.C. Splitstoser et al. Early pre-Hispanic use of indigo blue in Peru. Science Advances. Published online September 14, 2016. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1501623.
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