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  • #luxury
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The Ice Age

Here’s a note to those who smugly believe that our species is superior to animals: Without their skins and furs, we would probably never have survived the ice ages that hit earth since homo sapiens appeared over 300,000 years ago. Possibly proving this point is a recent archaeological discovery in a cave in Morocco that dates the oldest recorded human-made tools for making leather and fur garments to the onset of an ice age around 120,000 years ago.

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The Stone Age

Leather played an important role in the development of arts. One of the very earliest artistic techniques, developed by cave dwellers in the Stone Age, was pyrography, the craft of burning images onto stone or leather. Painting with leather brushes was an ancient art originating in China. The age-old Indonesian art of shadow puppet theatre employs carved leather figures manipulated between a lamp and a screen to bring the shadows to life.

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Paleolithic period

In the Paleolithic period, around 40,000 years ago, people started making moccasin-like wraparound footwear out of softened animal skins, or rawhide. This seemingly simple advancement gave humankind a major leg up in long-distance travel and marked the beginning of leather-making.

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Neolithic period

The harness followed.
By the Neolithic period of the later Stone Age, most farm animals, common today, had been domesticated. The earliest harnesses were most likely employed in agriculture, on oxen or donkeys. "

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12000-6000 years ago

Between 12,000 and 6,000 years ago, tanneries began cropping up in towns in Sumeria, Mehrgarh, and other ancient cultures.

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Early years of tanning

The work of an ancient tanner was unglamorous to say the least.It started with an arduous preparatory stage that could take several weeks. First, the animals skins were cleaned and softened with water. Once cleaned, the tanners still had to pound the hides to remove excess fat and flesh. Next, to loosen the hair follicles, they would either coat the hides with an alkaline lime mixture, leave the hides out to putrefy for months, or soak them in vats of urine before removal with a dull knife (scudding).

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Sturdy shoes = Birth of Commerce

The introduction of a sturdy leather sole many millennia ago enabled people to travel long distances. This increased the likelihood of different tribal groups being exposed to each other. Commerce was stimulated and an exchange of ideas and technology occurred.

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