Cotton from prehistoric Indus Valley found in 7,200 year old village in Israel

Cotton fibers have been found in Tel Tsaf, a site in the Near East, dating back to around 7,000 years ago. The researchers believe that the cotton originated from the Indus Valley (present day Sindh, Pakistan), though they do not rule out the possibility of an African origin. The researchers suggest that the cotton may have been brought to Tel Tsaf through trading. The earliest known evidence of cotton’s use is from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period at the Mehrgarh burial site in Pakistan, where cotton threads were used to string copper beads around 8,500 to 7,500 years ago. The earliest known cotton fabric is a fragment of cloth found at Mohenjo-Daro, also in Sindh, Pakistan, dating back to around 5,000 to 4,750 years ago.