Darkness pressed tight as archaeologists stepped into the mouth of Cueva de los Murciélagos—the “Cave of the Bats” in Granada, Spain. Here, under low ceilings and among fissured walls, the air was cool and still, unmoved by centuries.
As their lights danced across the stone, something unexpected glowed faintly: fragments of braided grass, shreds of plant fibers, a curved sole. Those quiet artifacts would soon rewrite how we think about technology, art, and the boundary between foragers and farmers.
In 2023, a team announced that they had radiocarbon-dated baskets from this cave to around 9,500 years ago, and sandals to about 6,200 years ago. These are now considered among the oldest known baskets and plant-fiber footwear in southern Europe.
This discovery is not just ancient—it is transformative. It forces us to listen again to what the past thought it could do.
A Cave That Hoarded Fragile History
The cave near Albuñol (in Granada province) had been pierced by 19th-century miners. In the 1800s, as workers tunneled, they exposed galleries full of bones, charred wood, braided fibers, and perishable items that were largely overlooked at the time. Many objects were broken or dispersed before archaeologists could document them.
Yet the cave’s microclimate offered an unusual preservation chamber: extremely low humidity, stable coolness, and limited airflow. Those conditions retarded decay, allowing organic materials—rare in archaeological records—to survive.
Centuries later, researchers from the MUTERMUR project (involving the University of Alcalá, UAB, and Spanish museums) revisited 76 organic items from museum stores, many of which had been catalogued but not deeply studied.
Using advanced lab techniques and rigorous carbon-14 dating, they found a continuum: from Mesolithic baskets (around 9,500 years old) to Neolithic sandals (around 6,200 years old) and associated wooden or reed tools.
One press release described the esparto grass objects as “the oldest and best-preserved set of plant fiber materials in southern Europe so far known.”
Craftsmanship Of Hunter-Gatherers
The baskets, woven with esparto grass, are not crude work. They show geometric motifs, dyed fibers, leather attachments, and signs of structural sophistication.
Some fibers are interwoven with pigments or human hair, hinting at decorative or symbolic elements. Their forms suggest uses: gathering roots, carrying seeds, storage, perhaps even trade or ceremonial purposes.
The sandals—or shoes—also made from esparto grass, represent the earliest known plant-fiber footwear in that region.
There are different types: some woven fully; others with a firmer core; and designs with fibers passing between toes to anchor ankle ties. Some pairs show wear; others likely assembled for burial.
The fact that these weavers could manipulate grass so deftly over time indicates deep knowledge of materials, tension, drying, splitting—all technical knowledge passed across generations.
Redefining Progress
For decades, historians viewed early humans through a narrow lens—hunter-gatherers were seen as simple, and farmers as the first innovators. The discoveries in Cueva de los Murciélagos challenge this outdated notion entirely.
The woven baskets and sandals found in the Spanish cave predate or coincide with the earliest agricultural activity in Iberia, proving that complex craftsmanship existed long before organized farming. The people who created them were not only survivors but skilled artisans who understood materials, design, and purpose on an extraordinary level.
These artifacts reveal that artistry and practicality coexisted seamlessly. The baskets were functional yet decorated with geometric designs and dyed fibers, showing a conscious sense of beauty. The sandals, tailored for comfort and form, demonstrate care for both utility and expression.
This discovery blurs the line between the so-called “primitive” and the “advanced.” It shows that innovation did not begin with the plow but with the human spirit—curious, creative, and capable—long before fields replaced forests.
As researcher Francisco Martínez-Sevilla noted, earlier assumptions must now evolve: ancient hunter-gatherers were already weavers, thinkers, and inventors. The story of progress is not a single leap forward—it is a continuous thread, woven through every hand that shaped the fibers of the past.
Imagining Life In The Cave’s Shadow
Close your eyes and imagine this: A small band of hunter-gatherers in early Holocene Iberia moves through scrub and river valleys. They collect esparto grass—tough, pliable—bring it to a sheltered rock overhang, then crush, soak, split, dry, and prepare long strands.
Some day, they weave a basket: stiff sides, geometric appliqué, leather straps to carry or hang. Another day, someone braids a sandal: sole, toe piece, ankle ties. It fits, it serves, it marks their touch in this fragile world.
And after many seasons, perhaps some of these objects enter a cave, in a burial or symbolic deposit. Then centuries pass. The cave’s cool silence seals them in.
Modern researchers, thousands of years later, lift them from darkness, date them, study them under microscopes. They read those fibers as signatures—of intent, of hand, of memory.
Ripples Beyond Spain
This Spanish discovery joins other archaeological revelations that constantly push back our sense of human beginnings. The very idea that organic materials—wood, grass, leather—that rarely survive can so vividly preserve culture is a gift.
Comparative studies of basketry in Neolithic sites—such as La Draga in northeast Spain—underscore the diversity and regional innovations in weaving across time.
Media outlets responded with wonder. Smithsonian Magazine titled its coverage, “Archaeologists uncover 9,500-year-old woven baskets and Europe’s oldest sandals.”
On Phys.org, an article emphasized how this is the first direct evidence of Mesolithic basketry in southern Europe, and how it complicates the old binary of “hunter vs farmer.”
In Archaeology Magazine, commentary noted that these finds were “10,000-year baskets and sandals” whose complexity astonished investigators.
These multiple perspectives—academic, media, popular—help to broaden how diverse audiences understand what the past was, not what we assumed it must be.
Threads Of Hope, Continuity, And Humility
When I reflect on this discovery, I feel a kind of hope: that human creativity is continuous, not sudden. The same craft traditions (for example, weaving with esparto grass) survive even today in rural Spain. That continuity connects the weaver of 9,500 years ago to artisans now—a thread of living heritage.
In a sense, every basket or sandal we unearth is a voice whispering across centuries. They tell us: we were thinking, experimenting, creating. We were not waiting for farming to invent us.
Perhaps that is the greatest lesson: history is not a ladder ascending only forward. It is a braid of lives, innovations, failures, and continuities. The boundary between “old” and “new” is porous.
Closing In The Cave’s Quiet
As the fieldlights fade and darkness reclaims the cave, imagine that first basket, its sides steeped in tapering grass, its strap dangling softly. Imagine a sandal silhouette, toes woven, ready to tread on rocky ground. Think of hands, centuries ago, bending straw, kerf-cutting, knotting.
In that silence we hear them: the rhythm of weaving, the gesture of footfall, the hum of intent. We realize that so much of human ingenuity lies not in grand monuments, but in the quiet pulse of craft.
And in that realization, we stand humbled—and more deeply connected—to a past that was always richer, more nuanced, and more evocative than we had dared believe.
Sources:
CBS News
Eurekalert
Live Science
