Study reveals Europe's oldest woven baskets and sandals

Mesolithic baskets woven from grass were discovered in a deep cave in southwestern Spain more than a century ago. Thanks to the stable conditions of the cave, the baskets have been preserved in their original state, practically looking as if they were made only yesterday. They have now been found to be 9,500 years old, making them the oldest surviving baskets in Europe.

The Cave of the Bats (Cueva de los Murciélagos) is a complex system sixty metres deep. At the bottom, with almost zero humidity, the conditions are ideal for the "preservation" of organic materials. When the cave was discovered by galena miners in the 19th century, they found dozens of partially mummified bodies buried with woven baskets, stone tools and boar's teeth. Unfortunately, some of the archaeological material was used by the miners as fuel for their boilers. Later excavations uncovered more mummified bodies buried with baskets, sandals and many tools.

Archaeologists previously thought that all the woven baskets from the cave were made by Neolithic farmers, as they bore intricate geometric designs and were made of dyed fibers. They were even decorated with human hair and various pigments. However, radiocarbon dating of the new study has determined that they were made during the Mesolithic, when the hunter-gatherer lifestyle prevailed. They were woven from grasses, which are still used by local craftsmen today to make baskets, shoes and hats. Mesolithic basket weavers used a closed weave with no gap between the weft elements, which creates a very tight and high quality basket.

A recently published study describes 76 surviving cave artifacts that are housed in the collection of the Museo Arqueológico Nacional in Madrid. The 65 objects were made from the fibers of the broad-leaved grass type esparto (cavyl the stiffest), which grows mainly in northern Africa and southern Spain. Radiocarbon dating divided the artefacts into the Mesolithic (7950 - 7360 BC) and Neolithic (4370 - 3740 BC) periods.

After Mesolithic occupation, the cave remained abandoned for 2,000 years before Early Neolithic farmers began to use it. They also wove esparto grass using more sophisticated and varied techniques. They produced a wide range of items; including cords, baskets, sandals, mats and bags. Wear analysis of a wooden mallet found in the cave suggests that it was used to crush the grass to make it softer, more flexible and therefore more comfortable when used on, for example, the soles of sandals.

Some sandals show signs of wear, others were in an unused state. Archaeologists believe that while some were buried wearing sandals they used in life, others had them made specifically for burial purposes: "The oldest dated sandal is about 6,000 years old, making it the oldest shoe ever found in Europe," explained research leader Professor Francisco Martínez Sevilla. "The use of plant fibres in Europe is older than we expected," added team member Maria Herrero-Otal from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. "We imagine Mesolithic populations as simple, but it seems they were much more complex than we thought," she added.

"The quality and technological complexity of basketry makes us question the simplistic assumptions that thewe have about human societies before the arrival of agriculture in southern Europe," Martínez-Sevilla said in a statement. "This work and the project, which is still evolving, positions the Cueva de los Murciélagos cave as a uniquesite in Europe for the study of the organic materials of prehistoric populations," he concluded.

Roman Němec

Sources: science.org, newscientist.com, smithsonianmag.com

A wooden mallet for softening grass fibers and Europe's oldest sandals

9500-year-old grass baskets from the Cave of the Bats

Mesolithic baskets

The cave's position is high above the valley floor

Profile of the valley and position of the cave on the slope

microscopic detail

The entrance to the bat cave