RT Journal Article
T1 Multidisciplinary investigation reveals the earliest textiles and cinnabar‑coloured cloth in Iberian Peninsula
A1 Gleba, Margarita
A1 Bretones García, M. Dolores
A1 Cimarelli, Corrado
A1 Vera Rodríguez, Juan Carlos
A1 Martínez Sánchez, Rafael M.
AB Textile production is among the most fundamental and more complex technologies in human prehistory, but is under-investigated due to the perishable nature of fibrous materials. Here we report a discovery of five textile fragments from a prehistoric (fourth-third millennium cal BC) burial deposit located in a small cave at Peñacalera in Sierra Morena hills, near Córdoba, Southern Spain. These textiles accompanied a set of human remains as grave goods, together with other organic elements such as fragments of wood and cork, and some pottery vessels. They were characterized and dated using digital microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry. Two of the fragments described here are the oldest examples of loom-woven textiles in the Iberian Peninsula, dating from the second half of the fourth millennium cal BC. This correlates chronologically with the first appearance of loom weights in the archaeological record of this region. The more recently dated textile is the earliest preserved cloth intentionally coloured with cinnabar in the western Mediterranean. The Peñacalera finds are a key reference for understanding the development of textile technologies during the Neolithic and Copper Age in western Europe and beyond.
PB Nature Research
SN 2045-2322 (electrónico)
YR 2021
FD 2021
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10272/20778
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10272/20778
LA eng
NO Gleba, M., Bretones-García, M. D., Cimarelli, C., Vera-Rodríguez, J. C., & Martínez-Sánchez, R. M. (2021). Multidisciplinary investigation reveals the earliest textiles and cinnabar-coloured cloth in Iberian Peninsula. In Scientific Reports (Vol. 11, Issue 1). Springer Science and Business Media LLC. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-01349-5
NO The site was discovered by speleologists A. Aljama and R. Bermúdez, who, together with M.J. Martínez-Fernández and G.M. Lara we thank for their cooperation throughout the fieldwork. Dating was carried out thanks to the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities-Universidad de Granada, Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación Agreement IJCI-2016-27812 (2016, by R.M.M.S.), and the funding provided in the framework of the project “Archaeobiology of the Neolithic of the Southern Iberian Peninsula” (NeArqBioSI) A-HUM-460-UGR18 funded by Consejería de Economía, Conocimiento, Empresas y Universidad, FEDER Programme—Junta de Andalucía-Universidad de Granada, Call 2019. M.G.’s work was supported by the European Research Council (Grant Agreement FP/2007-2013-312603).
DS Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Huelva
RD 30 may 2026