Page 7 - Illustrated Reditch History

A Prehistoric Needle and a Historic Modern Needle

These hunter-gatherers would have been wearing
clothes, probably made from the hides of animals,
but the question is, how were they made?
Perhaps holes were made either side of a piece
of skin and then some kind of laces threaded
through. The wearers must have been desperate
for needles and thread.
Some of the earliest needles were made from
strips of bone with a hole one end and a point the
other. Sometimes plants were used. The photo
shows a copy of a prehistoric needle in Forge Mill
that was made from a Yucca plant, a type of
cactus. It’s the earliest needle ever found and is
known as Eve's needle after the bible story of
Eve, the earths first woman. The stems have
spikes and they make good needles. Even better,
they come with the thread attached, the stem is
made up of fibres so that when they are
separated and dried they are like cotton. This is
a copy, the original needle was presented to the
queen on her visit to the museum in 1983.
If you look carefully you will see that with Eve's
needle is a tiny modern needle. It's used by
surgeons in delicate operations. A Redditch
company, Shrimpton and Fletcher are the only
people in the world to make them. One like this
was used in the Challenger space shuttle to sew
the delicate silica cloth which acts as a heat barrier.

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