There is no single date for the first use of leather. People used animal hides tens of thousands of years ago, and the evidence may point even further back. The earliest signs are indirect, because leather rarely survives for long in the ground.
Short answer
Hide use goes back at least tens of thousands of years, and the exact start is uncertain. Some evidence points to hundreds of thousands of years ago, based on stone tools with signs of hide scraping. Other evidence is more specific and dated, such as bone tools from caves in Morocco and France.
Treat any single “first” date with care. Our history of leathercraft overview puts these dates in a wider timeline.
Why the earliest evidence is indirect
Leather is made of protein, and it decays in most conditions. It survives mainly where the environment is dry, frozen, or waterlogged. Most early evidence is therefore indirect. It comes from tools, from the shapes of the holes made in hides, and from genetic studies.
The few surviving leather objects are much more recent than the tools that made them. This is one reason the dates for “first leather” are presented as ranges.
Scraping hides: stone tools and bone smoothers
Scraping a hide to remove flesh and fat is one of the oldest steps in hide work. Stone tools with signs of use on hides suggest that scraping began hundreds of thousands of years ago. The exact date is uncertain.
Bone tools give a more specific picture. At Contrebandiers Cave in Morocco, researchers have found bone hide-working tools roughly 90,000 to 120,000 years old. In France, Neanderthal bone smoothers, called lissoirs, are roughly 41,000 to 51,000 years old. These tools were used to work hides.
Piercing and sewing: bone awls, needles, and clothing lice
Once hides were scraped and softened, people needed to join them. Bone awls and needles made it possible to pierce and stitch hides together.
Eyed bone needles are widespread from about 40,000 years ago. Some earlier claims are debated, including findings from Denisova Cave.
Genetic studies also offer indirect evidence. Body lice that live in clothing appear to have split from head lice roughly 83,000 to 170,000 years ago. That suggests people were wearing clothing for a long time, though the estimate has a wide range and is not a direct date for leather.
Early preservation: drying, smoke, fats, and brains
Early people needed to keep hides from rotting. The methods they used included drying in the sun, smoking, and rubbing hides with fats and brains. The brain method is sometimes called brain tanning.
Smoke and brain tanning produce a soft leather similar to buckskin. These methods are not the same as chemical tanning, but they made hides last longer and stay usable. This is why using a raw hide is not the same as tanning it.
Vegetable tanning: a later development
Vegetable tanning uses plant tannins, such as those in tree bark, to stabilize a hide. It is a later development than basic drying and smoking. The earliest date for vegetable tanning is uncertain, and sources that give exact dates should be read carefully.
Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia had organized leather crafts by the 3rd or 2nd millennium BCE. Their methods are covered in leather in ancient Egypt.
The oldest surviving leather shoes
Some of the oldest known leather objects are shoes, and they are much more recent than the first hide tools.
- Areni-1 (Armenia), c. 3500 BCE: a piece of cowhide laced over the foot. It is the oldest known leather shoe, at about 5,500 years old.
- Ötzi the Iceman (c. 3300 BCE): found in the Alps, he wore leather shoes, leggings, a coat, a loincloth, and a quiver. His shoes had bearskin soles, deer-hide uppers, and grass insulation.
Fort Rock sandals from Oregon, about 9,000 to 10,000 years old, are often mentioned in discussions of early footwear. They are made of sagebrush bark, not leather.
Common misconceptions
- Ancient Egyptians did not invent leather. Hide use is tens of thousands of years older than Egyptian civilization.
- Fort Rock sandals are not leather. They are made of sagebrush bark.
- Using raw hides is not tanning. Early hides were cured or preserved, not chemically tanned.
- Exact dates for “first leather” cannot be pinned down. Read dates as ranges.
For a broader timeline, see the history of leathercraft. The Egyptian evidence is covered in leather in ancient Egypt, and later tanning methods are covered in medieval leatherworking techniques.