The little needle is one of the oldest tools in existence. We know that human beings began to use them more than sixty thousand years ago. Needles, and the textiles that came later have changed humanity completely and helped to make modern society what it is. But until recently very little attention has been paid to them. The contribution that textiles and the tools that surround them have made to our lives has been only dimly understood. This is changing as a new breed of archaeologist – textile archaeologists take centre stage and in doing completely alter our understanding of how humanity developed.

In this episode of Haptic & Hue, we talk to one of the world's most eminent textile archaeologists, Margarita Gleba. The evidence that she and others are piecing together for the first time from precious ancient textiles tell us new stories about how human beings organised their families, farms, towns, and cities, waged war and traded, how they expressed ideas of status and identity in clothing and how they used textiles in every corner of their lives.

Some of the greatest mysteries of our existence remain to be unlocked and their secrets may lie in the textiles that have not yet been properly analysed or researched. Listen to Margarita Gleba as she takes us on an expert's tour of the deep past and with her knowledge of textiles begins to sketch in some of the gaps.

If you would like to see a full script of the episode or discover links to further information about the topics discussed here you can find all this information at www.hapticandhue.com/listen.