A replica of possibly the oldest known bone needle in the world, found in the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia, dating to the time of the Neanderthal groups that inhabited the area around 50,000 years ago. The find was from the archaeological fieldwork of Institute of Archaeology in Novosibirsk in 2016, along with many other finds of the Denisovan Culture of the Neanderthal family. This replica follows the dimensions of the original at 76 mm long, and widest at 2mm. The amazingly intact needle hole measures only 1mm diameter and the area around the hole, was thinned for 3mm inward from end, to allow for the fold of the sewing material, which is a more sophisticated design than most archaeological needles. The original was identified as being made of an unidentified species of large bird bone. For our replica, we used the large wild turkey leg bone, which was split and scraped with stone flakes down to finished dimensions.
top of page
$50.00Price
bottom of page