#TANNING HIDES WITHOUT ALUM SERIES#

This process is not actually tanning, but a necessary preliminary step done by early peoples in a variety of ways. Hides are washed of blood and dung and the hair removed. However, before tanning can occur, the skins must be clean. Early tanning methods employed natural substances, in contrast to modern manufactured chemicals. The object of tanning is to render natural skins impervious to putrescence while imbuing them with greater pliability, suppleness, and durability.

#TANNING HIDES WITHOUT ALUM SERIES#

The series of chemical processes by which natural skins are converted to leather is known as tanning. Indeed, leather is a manufactured product that requires many steps. Prehistoric humans quickly discovered that raw skins removed from the animal needed to be treated before they could be useful. In the early 2000s, the Masai women of Africa were clad in cloaks and petticoats of leather, which harkened back to the earliest years.

Excavations of Sumerian peoples at Ur of the Chaldees brought to light extraordinary leather tires used on wooden wagons. Uses of leather by ancient peoples included all types of clothing, belts, thongs, footwear, headwear, gloves, ties, bags and vessels, armor, sheaths, packs, seat covers, saddles, animal trappings, tents, and even sails for ships. Later Neolithic and Bronze Age sites have yielded leather dagger sheaths, scabbards, shields, footwear, and jerkins of a sophistication that indicates that leather manufacture was mastered early in human history.Īs humans learned to domesticate cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and pigs, the availability of raw materials for leather production swelled. Flint instruments, including knives, scrapers, and awls used for removing flesh, have been found in addition to wooden poles and beams used for beating and draping hides. Paleolithic cave paintings depict figures wearing skins and furs, and excavations at these sites have revealed an active leather industry. Before early humans mastered the art of weaving, skins from animals slain for food (with and without the fur) were utilized for garments, footwear, headgear, and protective clothing, as well as a host of practical applications, and were linked to warmth and to humans' very survival.īefore domestication of cattle and pigs, skins of deer and wild animals, as well as wild sheep and goats were dressed. It would not be an exaggeration to call leather the first human industry, since the wearing of animal skins goes back to the beginning of human existence.

Tanning hides without alum