PROJECT/ESSAY: A Stitch in Time (Patreon)

Oh dang, so archaeologists in Wyoming found 13,0000 year old sewing needle fragments and I am just marveling at their hypothesis that humans probably couldn't migrate into North America until they'd figured out how to sew "sophisticated" clothes against the cold.

Once equipped with warm, close-fitting garments, 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, according to the study, making eyed needles an extremely important prehistoric innovation.

It is “no coincidence” that needles are found at the oldest sites in North America — the continent was likely unoccupied until humans had the ability to make tailored clothes, Gilligan noted.

“Regardless of how good they were as hunter-gatherers, humans could never push into regions like northern Siberia without sophisticated clothes,” Gilligan said.

-- "Archaeologists discover key tool that helped early Americans survive the ice age." by Katie Hunt.

I marveled about this on BlueSky until Cartoonist/Prehistory Nerd, Ray Baehr, blew my mind even further by pointing out: 

"People have been making sophisticated clothing for a lot longer than 13,000 years so it couldn't have been the only factor that made migrating to North America possible. The oldest needles are 40,000 years old and there's even evidence of weaving from 30,000 years ago." 

Like.

How do I even explain why this is hitting me so hard?

I sew! I sew a lot!

I embroider some truly ridiculous bullshit and I mend the clothing of both friends and strangers. I hold a steel needle between my fingers and I suck the frayed tip of thread so it'll go through the eye and I pull it through the layers of cloth until they're stitched down tight.

It's this important practice in my life and it... it goes back tens of thousands of years! IT'S THE REASON HUMANS COULD MIGRATE ONTO INHOSPITABLE CONTINENTS?? Like, they literally couldn't do it until they invented bone sewing needles strung with sinew and created Ice Age-proof clothing.

Like.

Isn't that amazing?

It's 40,000 years later and not only are we still practicing this same skill with essentially the same tools, but that craft may have very well been the reason humans could even exist on an uninhabitable landmass. Like.

Don't you just feel that in your heart?

Now, if you'll exCUSE me, I've got to get back to this scale replica of a 1990's Batman: The Animated Series McDonald's Happy Meal Box that I am painstakingly recreating through embroidery.

It's what my ancestors would have wanted.

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(A version of this post was originally farted out on BlueSky.)