Chronology and Cultural Attribution of the Earliest Upper Palaeolithic Bone Needles of Siberia

Abstract

The technologies of sewing complex forms of clothing with the use of awls, borers, and miniature eyed needles played an essential role in human adaptation to harsh environments of the Late Pleistocene Northern Eurasia. Classic eyed bone needles were widely distributed during the second half of MIS 3 from Western Europe to East Asia. Questions of where and when tools of this type, as well as other functionally related instruments, arise are the subject of discussions. The collections of the Initial and Early Upper Paleolithic sites of Siberia are of crucial importance in the discussion of this problem. In this study, based on the analysis of various published and archival sources, the authors update and systematize data on the chronology, cultural and technological contexts of the earliest bone needles of the Siberian region. The amount of archaeological and natural science data accumulated to date, the results of the latest interdisciplinary investigations significantly clarify the cultural and chronological attribution of many unique items. Based on broad interregional comparisons, the authors discuss the relationship between the spread of different types of sewing tools, on one hand, and the migrations of Palaeolithic communities, on the other.