Early basket weaving in southern Europe dates back at least 9,500 years

Story: 9500 B.C.E.  |  Last updated: January 8, 0001

A cave in southern Spain held something unexpected: baskets, cords, sandals, and wooden tools — organic objects that should have rotted away millennia ago. Instead, they survived in near-perfect condition, offering one of the clearest windows yet into how early humans organized their lives and prepared to move through the world.

What the evidence shows

• Basket weaving: Fiber-based materials recovered from Cueva de los Murciélagos in the Iberian Peninsula have been dated to between 9,500 and 9,000 years old, making them the earliest confirmed evidence of basketry in southern Europe.
• Organic preservation: The cave environment — sheltered from weather and moisture fluctuations — allowed perishable plant-fiber objects to survive across millennia, a rare outcome in the archaeological record.
• Hunter-gatherer technology: The materials predate the appearance of pottery in this region, confirming that fiber containers were the primary storage and transport technology before ceramic production began.

Why a basket changed everything

It’s easy to underestimate what a woven container means to a group of people living on the move. Before baskets, bags, and cordage became widespread, everything a person could carry was limited to what their arms could hold unassisted.

Add a basket, and the calculus shifts entirely. A community traveling to find food or better shelter could now bring preserved food, finished tools, clothing, and other materials along for the journey. They didn’t have to start over every time they moved. That single capability — portable storage — accelerated how humans explored and settled new environments across continents.

Archaeobotanist Maria Herrero-Otal of the University of Barcelona, who co-authored the study analyzing the Cueva de los Murciélagos materials, puts it plainly: containers made of vegetal fibers were almost certainly involved in “transporting and storing functions, or even used as sepulchral goods.” These weren’t just practical tools. They were woven into the full arc of human life, from daily survival to burial ritual.

What was found in the cave

The site yielded a remarkable range of preserved organic objects. Researchers identified twisted and braided cords, two distinct types of sandals, a wooden hammer, pointed sticks, handles, and a spoon — each made from different wood species. The fiber materials span two distinct date ranges: roughly 7,986 to 7,391 B.C.E. and 4,373 to 3,740 B.C.E.

That spread suggests the cave was used across thousands of years, by different groups, possibly for different purposes. Some items may have served as everyday tools. Others may have held ceremonial meaning. Discover Magazine reports that researchers are still working to understand the specific function of each object.

The sandals are a detail worth pausing on. Footwear allowed people to cross unfamiliar or difficult terrain without injuring their feet — an underrated advantage when survival depended on mobility. The cords, meanwhile, would have served dozens of purposes, including hanging and preserving food.

The invisible history of perishable technology

One of the most important things this find illustrates is how much of early human ingenuity has simply vanished. Peer-reviewed archaeological research consistently shows that organic materials — plant fibers, wood, leather, textiles — decompose rapidly in most conditions. Traditional archaeology has been built around what survives: stone, bone, and eventually pottery.

That bias shapes what we know. For a long time, the story of early technology was essentially a story of stone tools, because stone is what endures. But humans were almost certainly weaving, knotting, and carrying things in fiber containers far earlier than the physical record can currently confirm.

Herrero-Otal is direct about this: “We do not know when the use of fibers appeared, but we know that they were used at least 9,500 years ago, [and] the experience in their production shows they were used probably since some generations before.” The skill visible in these objects — complex braiding, varied cordage techniques — points to a long tradition already mature by the time these baskets were made.

Researchers working with archaeological journals focused on material culture have noted similar patterns globally: fiber technology likely preceded or paralleled stone tool development in many regions, but the evidence simply doesn’t survive in most climates. Finds like Cueva de los Murciélagos are rare enough that each one rewrites part of the timeline.

Lasting impact

Basket weaving and cordage are foundational technologies. They enabled portable food storage, which supported longer migrations. They made it possible to carry infants, tools, and supplies across terrain that would otherwise force communities to leave everything behind. Textiles, nets, traps, and eventually agriculture all owe something to the mastery of plant fibers.

The history of basketry extends across every continent and culture, with Indigenous communities worldwide developing sophisticated techniques adapted to local plants and needs. In many traditions, basket-weaving carried deep social and spiritual significance — patterns encoded identity, lineage, and meaning. The cave in southern Spain is one node in a vast, largely invisible web of human ingenuity that stretches back far beyond what archaeology can yet confirm.

It’s worth noting, too, that archaeological knowledge of this period is still heavily shaped by where excavations have taken place. Comparable fiber technologies may be just as ancient in Africa, Asia, and the Americas — regions where organic preservation conditions are often less favorable, and where research funding has historically been more limited.

Blindspots and limits

The evidence from Cueva de los Murciélagos establishes a firm lower bound for basketry in southern Europe, but it tells us almost nothing about how widespread or how old the practice actually was. The 9,500-year figure reflects the limits of preservation, not the limits of human capability. Fiber technology in other parts of the world — particularly sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia — may be equally ancient or older, but the archaeological record there is thinner, partly due to climate and partly due to less intensive excavation. The specific uses of many objects found at the site also remain under study, meaning the full picture is still incomplete.

Read more

For more on this story, see: Discover Magazine

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