Archaeometry (reprint) 2009

Silk is an important economic fiber, and is generally considered to have been the exclusive cultural heritage of China. Silk weaving is evident from the Shang period c. 1600-1045 BC, though the earliest evidence for silk textiles in ancient China dates to a millennium earlier. Recent microscopic analysis of archaeological thread fragments found inside copper and steatite beads from two important Indus sites, Harappa and Chanhu-daro, have yielded silk fibers, dating to c. 2450-2000 BC. This study offers the earliest evidence in the world for any silk outside China, and is roughly contemporaneous with the earliest Chinese evidence for silk. This important new finding brings into question the traditional historical notion of sericulture as being an exclusively Chinese invention.