News > Indigenous input revealed early hints of fibre making in the tropics

Indigenous input revealed early hints of fibre making in the tropics

Archaeologists studying ancient artefacts on Palawan Island in the Philippines have enlisted the help of the Indigenous Pala'wan people to decipher the purpose of stone tools. By observing Pala'wan's traditional techniques of processing plant fibres, the researchers found similarities between the marks on the ancient tools and those created during fibre making. This discovery pushes back the evidence of fibre-making in the tropics to 39,000 years ago.