History of hide materials
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Humanity has used animal hides since the Paleolithic[clarification needed], for clothing as well as mobile shelters such as tipis and wigwams, and household items. Since ancient times, hides have also been used as a writing medium, in the form of parchment.
Fur clothing was used by other hominids, at least the Neanderthals, though their use was likely limited to rudimentary capes.[1]
Rawhide is a simple hide product, that turns stiff. It was formerly used for binding pieces of wood together. Today it is mostly found in drum skins.
Tanning of hides to manufacture leather was invented during the Paleolithic.
Parchment for use in writing was introduced during the Bronze Age and later refined into vellum, before paper became commonplace.[citation needed]
Prehistoric and Ancient use
[edit]
Ian Gilligan (Australian National University) has argued convincingly that hominids without fur would have needed leather clothing to survive outside the tropics in mid-latitude Eurasia, southern Africa, and the Levant during the cold glacial and stadial periods of the Ice Age, and there is archaeological evidence for the use of hide and leather in the Paleolithic.[2]
Simple, unmodified stone flakes could have been used to scrape hides for tanning, but scraper tools are more specialized for tasks such as woodworking and hideworking.[2]: 19–20, 37 Both of these stone tool shapes were invented in the Oldowan,[3]: 61, 66–67 but direct evidence for hideworking has not been found from earlier than about 400,000 years ago. Examination of microscopic use-wear on scrapers demonstrates they were used to prepare hides at that time at Hoxne in England.[4]
The earliest known bone awls date to between 84,000 and 72,000 years ago in South Africa, and their use-wear shows that they were probably used to pierce soft materials, such as tanned leather.[5] Bone awls were later made in the Aurignacian in Europe, west Asia, and Russia, and also in Tasmania during the Last Glacial Maximum.[2]: 50–51, 44–45 [3]: 157–158 The earliest eyed sewing needles date to between 43,000 and 28,500 years ago, probably at least 35,000 years ago, in southern Siberia, and were used across Paleolithic Eurasia and in North America.[2]: 49
Paleolithic hunters are also known to have targeted fur-bearing animals, such as wolves and arctic foxes in Europe, snow leopards in Central Asia, mole-rats in Africa, and red-necked wallabies in Tasmania.[2]: 45–48
As animal husbandry was introduced during the Neolithic, human communities got a steady source of hides. The oldest confirmed leather tanning tools were found in ancient Sumer and date to approximately 5000 BCE.[6] The oldest surviving piece of leather footwear is the Areni-1 shoe that was made in Armenia around 3500 BCE. Another, possibly older, piece of leather was found in Guitarrero Cave in northern Peru, dating to the Archaic period.[3]: 340
Archaeologists have discovered evidence of tanned and treated animal skins in Badarian and predynastic Egyptian graves.[7]: 33 Artistic depictions of leather working appear in tombs dating from as early as the Fifth Dynasty.[7]: 34–35 The archaeological record of the Nile Valley provides examples of the development of different methods of tanning and treating hides and skins including drying, smoke curing, salt curing, and softening with the use of fat, urine, dung, brain, and oils.[7]: 34
Medieval use
[edit]During the Middle Ages, as leather craft was developed, welt shoes and turnshoes were invented. Refined kinds of leather such as suede and nubuck were also introduced.[8]
Modern use
[edit]New kinds of tanning chemicals came to use during the Industrial Revolution. Patent leather has been manufactured since 1793.[9] Industrial patent leather production emerged in the United States in 1819 based on an adaptation of European production methods.[10] Chromium tanning was invented during the 1850s.[11] Contemporary tanning processes use vegetable tannins, minerals products, organic products, and chrome salts to produce leathers with different finishes and properties.[12]
Fur farming first appears in the archaeological record in late Iron Age sites in Orkney.[13]Synthetic fur is an alternative to genuine fur, for cost and ethical reasons.
Several kinds of synthetic leather have been invented during the 20th century.
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ Collard, Mark; Tarle, Lia; Sandgathe, Dennis; Allan, Alexander (2016-12-01). "Faunal evidence for a difference in clothing use between Neanderthals and early modern humans in Europe". Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. Progress in Theoretically Driven Hunter-Gatherer Research. 44: 235–246. doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2016.07.010. hdl:2164/9989. ISSN 0278-4165.
- ^ a b c d e Gilligan, Ian (March 2010). "The Prehistoric Development of Clothing: Archaeological Implications of a Thermal Model". Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. 17 (1): 15–80. doi:10.1007/s10816-009-9076-x. JSTOR 25653129. S2CID 143004288.
- ^ a b c Scarre, Chris, ed. (2005). The Human Past. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. ISBN 978-0-500-28531-2.
- ^ Keeley, L. H. (1980). Experimental determination of stone tool uses: A microwear analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 128–151. ISBN 0-226-42889-3.
- ^ Henshilwoood, C. S.; d'Errico, F.; Marean, C. W.; Milo, R. G.; Yates, R. (2001). "An early bone tool industry from the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave, South Africa: Implications for the origins of modern human behaviour, symbolism and language". Journal of Human Evolution. 41 (6): 662. doi:10.1006/jhev.2001.0515. PMID 11782112.
- ^ ""السومرية"... أقدم حضارات العالم". عرب 48 (in Arabic). July 12, 2016. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
- ^ a b c Lucas, A.; Harris, J. (2012). Ancient Egyptian Materials and Industries. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications.
- ^ Ma, Jianzhong; Lv, Xiujuan; Gao, Dangge; Li, Yun; Lv, Bin; Zhang, Jing (2014-06-01). "Nanocomposite-based green tanning process of suede leather to enhance chromium uptake". Journal of Cleaner Production. 72: 120–126. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2014.03.016. ISSN 0959-6526.
- ^ Anderson, James (1793). "The Bee, or Literary Weekly Intelligencer". Retrieved 2025-03-21.
- ^ Tuttle, Brad R. (2009). How Newark Became Newark: The Rise, Fall and Rebirth of an American City. Rutgers University Press. p. 27.
- ^ Sreeram, K. J; Ramasami, T (2003-06-01). "Sustaining tanning process through conservation, recovery and better utilization of chromium". Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 38 (3): 185–212. doi:10.1016/S0921-3449(02)00151-9. ISSN 0921-3449.
- ^ Kula, Daniel; Ternaux, Élodie; Hirsinger, Quentin (2013). Materiology : The Creative Industry's Guide to Materials and Technologies. Walter de Gruyter GmbH. p. 36. ISBN 9783038212546.
- ^ Fairnell, Eva H.; Barrett, James H. (2007-03-01). "Fur-bearing species and Scottish islands". Journal of Archaeological Science. 34 (3): 463–484.
References
[edit]Scarre, Chris, ed. (2005). The Human Past. London: Thames and Hudson Ltd. ISBN 978-0-500-28531-2.