Neanderthals Skinned Animals With Reindeer Bones To Make Leather Clothing

Neanderthals in France may have been strutting around in leather clothes with matching handbags more than 100,000 years ago. OK, that’s a bit of a claim, but the discovery of a bone tool used for flaying animal carcasses does suggest that these extinct hominins were adept at skinning prey and using their hides to make sturdy, waterproof items. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

The utensil in question was found at the site of Abri du Maras in France, which was used as a summer hunting camp by Neanderthals at some point between about 105,000 and 132,000 years ago. Returning to the same location year after year, these prehistoric hunters feasted on reindeer and wild horses, and it was while breaking open a reindeer femur t