Earliest Baskets in Europe, From Almost 10,000 Years Ago, Found in Spanish Cave

Haaretz ^ | September 27, 2023 | Ruth Schuster

[SunkenCiv]

In southern Spain’s Cave of the Bats, starting almost 10,000 years ago, people buried their dead with stunningly crafted baskets that wouldn’t shame the finest arts and crafts markets today.

Armed with elaborate baskets made of the tough local grass, the first to bury their loved ones at Cueva de los Murciélagos were hunter-gatherers in the Mesolithic (at the tail end of the Ice Age). That activity then ceased for about 2,000 years, at which point a new population appeared in the cave: early farmers of the Neolithic, who interred their dead with a different type of woven-ware – and sandals too, using the same raw material. In other words, the woven and wood artifacts were produced in the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods by different populations, and show evolution of technique over time.

The rare collection of perishable artifacts range from more than 9,500 years ago to about 6,200 years ago, says the report published Wednesday in the American Association for the Advancement of Science by a large team of scientists, including Carmen Alfaro Giner, who has reported extensively on the cave’s finds (in Spanish).

[SunkenCiv]

Interior of the Cueva de los Murciélagos de Albuñol (Cave of the Bats).

Credit: Blas Ramos Rodríguez

[SunkenCiv]

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I read some of this stuff and I think, dang we are a very consistent species.

[Red Badger]

Made in China?...................

[SunkenCiv]

Even then, they needed handbaskets. :^)

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Humanity has always been in one. :)

[Vaduz]

Cave man finds bird nest with eatables in it.

[SunkenCiv]

Maybe it’s our comfort zone.