Human and animal skin identified by palaeoproteomics in Scythian leather objects from Ukraine.

Leather was one of the most important materials of nomadic Scythians, used for clothing, shoes, and quivers, amongst other objects. However, our knowledge regarding the specific animal species used in Scythian leather production remains limited. In this first systematic study, we used palaeoproteomics methods to analyse the species in 45 samples of leather and two fur objects recovered from 18 burials excavated at 14 different Scythian sites in southern Ukraine. Our results demonstrate that Scythians primarily used domesticated species such as sheep, goat, cattle, and horse for the production of leather, while the furs were made of wild animals such as fox, squirrel and feline species. The surprise discovery is the presence of two human skin samples, which for the first time provide direct evidence of the ancient Greek historian Herodotus' claim that Scythians used the skin of their dead enemies to manufacture leather trophy items, such as quiver covers. We argue that leather manufacture is not incompatible with a nomadic lifestyle and that Scythians possessed sophisticated leather production technologies that ensured stable supply of this essential material.

Multidisciplinary investigation reveals the earliest textiles and cinnabar-coloured cloth in Iberian Peninsula.

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.