Editing Cotton (section)

====South Asia====
{{Further|Tree cotton}}
[[File:Mehrgarh pakistan rel96.JPG|thumb|Mehrgarh shown in a physical map of the surrounding region]]

The earliest evidence of the use of cotton in the [[Old World]], dated to 5500 BC and preserved in copper beads, has been found at the [[Neolithic]] site of [[Mehrgarh]], at the foot of the [[Bolan Pass]] in [[ancient India]], today in [[Balochistan]] Pakistan.<ref name="Mithen2006">{{citation|last=Mithen|first=Steven|title=After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NVygmardAA4C&pg=PA411|year=2006|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-01999-7|pages=411–412}} Quote: "One of the funerary chambers, dating to around 5500 BC, had contained an adult male lying on his side with legs flexed backward and a young child, approximately one or two years old, at his feet. Next to the adult's left wrist were eight copper beads which had once formed a bracelet. As such metal beads were only found in one other Neolithic burial at Mehrgarh, he must have been an extraordinarily wealthy and important person. Microscopic analysis showed that each bead had been made by beating and heating copper ore into a thin sheet which had then been rolled around a narrow rod. Substantial corrosion prevented a detailed technological study of the beads; yet this turned out to be a blessing as the corrosion had led to the preservation of something quite remarkable inside one of the beads – a piece of cotton. ... After further microscopic study, the fibres were unquestionably identified as cotton; it was, in fact, a bundle of both unripe and ripe fibres that had been wound together to make a thread, these being differentiated by the thickness of their cell walls. As such, this copper bead contained the earliest known use of cotton in the world by at least a thousand years. The next earliest was also found at Mehrgarh: a collection of cotton seeds discovered amidst charred wheat and barley grains outside one of its mud-brick rooms."</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1006/jasc.2001.0779| title = First Evidence of Cotton at Neolithic Mehrgarh, Pakistan: Analysis of Mineralized Fibres from a Copper Bead| journal = Journal of Archaeological Science| volume = 29| issue = 12| pages = 1393–1401| year = 2002| last1 = Moulherat | first1 = C. | last2 = Tengberg | first2 = M. | last3 = Haquet | first3 = J. R. M. F. | last4 = Mille | first4 = B. ̂T. | bibcode = 2002JArSc..29.1393M}} Quote: "The metallurgical analysis of a copper bead from a Neolithic burial (6th millennium bc) at Mehrgarh, Pakistan, allowed the recovery of several threads, preserved by mineralization. They were characterized according to new procedure, combining the use of a reflected-light microscope and a scanning electron microscope, and identified as cotton (Gossypium sp.). The Mehrgarh fibres constitute the earliest known example of cotton in the Old World and put the date of the first use of this textile plant back by more than a millennium. Even though it is not possible to ascertain that the fibres came from an already domesticated species, the evidence suggests an early origin, possibly in the Kachi Plain, of one of the Old World cottons.</ref><ref name="JIAPAN2018">{{cite journal |last1=Jia |first1=Yinhua |last2=Pan |first2=Zhaoe |last3=He |first3=Shoupu |last4=Gong |first4=Wenfang |last5=Geng |first5=Xiaoli |last6=Pang |first6=Baoyin |last7=Wang |first7=Liru |last8=Du |first8=Xiongming |title=Genetic diversity and population structure of Gossypium arboreum L. collected in China |journal=Journal of Cotton Research |date=December 2018 |volume=1 |issue=1 |page=11 |doi=10.1186/s42397-018-0011-0 |bibcode=2018JCotR...1...11J |doi-access=free |quote=Gossypium arboreum is a diploid species cultivated in the Old World. It was first domesticated near the Indus Valley before 6000 BC (Moulherat et al. 2002).}}</ref>  Fragments of cotton textiles have been found at [[Mohenjo-daro]] and other sites of the [[Bronze Age]] [[Indus Valley civilization]], and cotton may have been an important export from it.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ahmed |first1=Mukhtar |title=Ancient Pakistan - an Archaeological History: Volume III: Harappan Civilization - the Material Culture |date=2014 |publisher=Amazon |isbn=978-1-4959-6643-9 |page=249 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3qvVBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA249 }}</ref>