News Article: Today's Leather Tools 'invented By Neanderthals'

[FlHobbyist]

An interesting article about the very early leather workers:

Neanderthals were just as good at working leather as modern humans - and used the same tools still employed by leather-workers today - a new study has found.

Four views of the most complete lissoir found during excavations at the Neandertal site of Abri Peyrony. Credit: Abri Peyrony & Pech-de-l’Azé I Projects

Anthroboffins from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands have discovered evidence of interesting bone tools in neighbouring Paleolithic sites in southwest France.

The digs uncovered equipment that was used more than 40,000 years ago to make hides more lustrous and water resistant. Boffins previously believed that the tools, called lissoirs, had only been used by modern humans, but the finds suggest humans and Neanderthals may have developed the implements independently. It's even possible that humans got the idea from the Neanderthals, which are considered a separate species from homo sapiens.

Link to article: http://www.theregist..._leather_tools/