Researchers in Oregon and Nevada have determined that artifacts found inside Cougar Mountain Cave in Central Oregon are the oldest known examples of sewn hide. The items were preserved inside dry caves for more than 12,000 years and provide rare examples of what researchers say is likely early clothing dating back to the late Ice Age.

The collection of 55 items includes bone sewing needles, braided cord made from plant fibers, and sharpened projectile points. But the most notable among them are the two pieces of animal skin stitched together with cord that are older than anything else like them found in the world.

The sewn hides were interpreted to be “the margin of a piece of tight-fitted clothing, moccasin, bag or container, or part of a portable shelter,” according to the researchers’ analysis, published Feb. 4 in the journal Science Advances.

“Being able to get a glimpse of what those things are really like and confirming what raw materials, what plants and animals they used to make these things, is hardly ever attainable,” said lead author Richie Rosencrance, a researcher based at the University of Nevada, Reno, who also works closely with the University of Oregon.

Rosencrance’s co-authors included researchers from the University of Oregon and Eastern Oregon University.

While it’s rare to find items made from plants, wood and hide that have been preserved for so long, this research illustrates the deep ties that Indigenous people in Oregon have to their home, Rosencrance said. For example, the artifacts they studied show techniques still used today for basketry by members of the Klamath and Paiute tribes.

“This is kind of chronicling almost 12,000 years of shared technological knowledge,” he said.

Members of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs and the Klamath Tribes could not immediately be reached for comment.

Artifacts made from organic materials usually decay. The items the researchers studied were found inside three cave sites in Central Oregon that are exposed to so little moisture they had been preserved since the Younger Dryas period, between 11,700 and 12,900 years ago during a cold period near the end of the last Ice Age.

Cougar Mountain Cave, the Paisley Caves and the Connley Caves were used by people as temporary shelter across generations, Rosencrance said, hence the expansive collection of artifacts found there.

Such items “are extremely rare in Pleistocene archeological sites, limiting our ability to construct detailed models of population diasporas and cultural responses to climate change,” the paper reads.

The artifacts themselves were found decades ago. The sewn hide artifacts found inside Cougar Mountain Cave were recovered by a nonprofessional in the 1950s, Rosencrance said. Over the decades, they went from private ownership to the Favell Museum in Klamath Falls, where the team of researchers began studying them and used radiocarbon dating to determine their approximate age.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/12/central-oregon-cave-oldest-artifacts-sewing/