Bone sewing needles from Altamira 13 500 - 11 000 BP. This Palaeolithic invention had the same purpose as the current tool: to make clothes, shoes or hats. With parallel grooves made with a burin, thin rods were extracted from the bone which later were perforated and polished on stone to make needles. The smallest ones, with a 2 mm diameter and an eye, prove how well they tanned skins to make clothes, and how thin the thread was, which was probably made of animal tendon. Photo: Altamira National Museum and Research Centre © Ministry of Culture, http://www.spainisculture.com/