Who discovered cotton, and where?

Question

I'm just curious... was it discovered by some tribe, or an individual, and where?

Answer 1

The roots of cotton use are to find all over the world:

"Scientists  have determined fiber and boll fragments from the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico to  be about 7000 years old. The plant has certainly been grown and used in India  for at least 5000 years and probably for much longer. Cotton was used also by  the ancient Chinese, Egyptians, and North and South Americans. It was one of the  earliest crops grown by European settlers, having been planted at the Jamestown  colony in 1607." ( cit.)

http://www.pcga.org/cotton_history.html

Answer 2

No one knows exactly how old cotton is. Scientists searching Open Cotton Bollcaves in Mexico found bits of cotton bolls and pieces of cotton cloth that proved to be at least 7,000 years old. They also found that the cotton itself was much like that grown in America today.

In the Indus River Valley in Pakistan, cotton was being grown, spun and woven into cloth 3,000 years BC. At about the same time, natives of Egypt’s Nile valley were making and wearing cotton clothing.

Arab merchants brought cotton cloth to Europe about 800 A.D. When Columbus discovered America in 1492, he found cotton growing in the Bahama Islands. By 1500, cotton was known generally throughout the world.

Cotton seed are believed to have been planted in Florida in 1556 and in Virginia in 1607. By 1616, colonists were growing cotton along the James River in Virginia.

Cotton was first spun by machinery in England in 1730. The industrial revolution in England and the invention of the cotton gin in the U.S. paved the way for the important place cotton holds in the world today.

Eli Whitney GinEli Whitney, a native of Massachusetts, secured a patent on the cotton gin in 1793, though patent office records indicate that the first cotton gin may have been built by a machinist named Noah Homes two years before Whitney’s patent was filed. The gin, short for engine, could do the work 10 times faster than by hand.

The gin made it possible to supply large quantities of cotton fiber to the fast-growing textile industry. Within 10 years, the value of the U.S. cotton crop rose from $150,000 to more than $8 million.

Cotton is a soft, staple fiber that grows around the seeds of the cotton plant (Gossypium sp.), a shrub native to tropical and subtropical regions around the world, including the Americas, India and Africa. The fiber most often is spun into yarn or thread and used to make a soft, breathable textile, which is the most widely used natural-fiber cloth in clothing today. The English name which began to be used circa 1400, derives from the Arabic (al) qutn قُطْن, meaning cotton. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, cotton was known as "King Cotton" because of the great economic and cultural influence it had over the Southern United States.

Cotton fiber, once it has been processed to remove seeds (ginning) and traces of honeydew (a secretion from aphids), protein, vegetable matter, and other impurities, consists of nearly pure cellulose, a natural polymer. Cotton production is very efficient, in the sense that only ten percent or less of the weight is lost in subsequent processing to convert the raw cotton bolls (seed coat) into pure fiber. The cellulose is arranged in a way that gives cotton fibers a high degree of strength, durability, and absorbency. Each fiber is made up of twenty to thirty layers of cellulose coiled in a neat series of natural springs. When the cotton boll is opened, the fibers dry into flat, twisted, ribbon-like shapes and become kinked together and interlocked. This interlocked form is ideal for spinning into a fine yar

Cotton was cultivated by the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization by the 5th millennium BCE - 4th millennium BCE.The Indus cotton industry was well developed and some methods used in cotton spinning and fabrication continued to be used till the modern Industrialization of India.Well before the Common Era the use of cotton textiles had spread from India to the Mediterranean and beyond.

According to The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition:

    "Cotton has been spun, woven, and dyed since prehistoric times. It clothed the people of ancient India, Egypt, and China. Hundreds of years before the Christian era cotton textiles were woven in India with matchless skill, and their use spread to the Mediterranean countries. In the 1st cent. Arab traders brought fine muslin and calico to Italy and Spain. The Moors introduced the cultivation of cotton into Spain in the 9th cent. Fustians and dimities were woven there and in the 14th cent. in Venice and Milan, at first with a linen warp. Little cotton cloth was imported to England before the 15th cent., although small amounts were obtained chiefly for candlewicks. By the 17th cent. the East India Company was bringing rare fabrics from India. Native Americans skillfully spun and wove cotton into fine garments and dyed tapestries. Cotton fabrics found in Peruvian tombs are said to belong to a pre-Inca culture. In color and texture the ancient Peruvian and Mexican textiles resemble those found in Egyptian tombs."

The earliest cultivation of cotton discovered thus far in the Americas occurred in Mexico, some 5,000 years ago. The indigenous species was Gossypium hirsutum which is today the most widely planted species of cotton in the world, constituting about 90% of all production worldwide. The greatest diversity of wild cotton species is found in Mexico, followed by Australia and Africa.

In Peru, cultivation of the indigenous cotto

Answer 3

No one knows exactly how old cotton is. Scientists searching caves in Mexico found bits of cotton bolls and pieces of cotton cloth that proved to be at least 7,000 years old. They also found that the cotton itself was much like that grown in America today.