But the needle’s presence documents that these things existed, that someone was making them with a level of technical precision that is not usually visible in the early Paleoindian record.

Eyed needles are known from the Upper Paleolithic of Eurasia — from sites in Russia, central Asia, and France dating back 40,000 or more years.

The technology of the eyed needle was developed in the Old World and brought to the Americas by the people who crossed the Bering land bridge.

Its presence in the Buhl burial places the terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene inhabitants of the Snake River Plain within this broader technological tradition of sewn clothing — a technology that is generally considered to have been essential for human survival in cold environments.

The needle being placed in the burial with the Buhl Woman may reflect several things: it might indicate that sewing was her specific skill or craft identity; it might reflect beliefs about what she would need in whatever comes after death; it might reflect something about the social role of the person who placed it, or their relationship to her.