Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy fiber that forms inside a protective casing called a boll, which grows around the seeds of plants in the Gossypium genus, part of the mallow family. This fiber consists almost entirely of cellulose, with small amounts of waxes, fats, pectins, and water. In nature, the bolls help scatter the seeds. The plant is a shrub native to warm regions across the globe, including the Americas, Africa (including Egypt), and India.

The highest variety of wild cotton species occurs in Mexico, followed by Australia and Africa. Domestication of cotton happened separately in the Old World and the New World. Most cotton fiber is spun into yarn or thread and then woven into textiles that are soft, breathable, and long-lasting. People have used cotton for fabric since prehistoric times.

Early history

Evidence of Gossypium barbadense has been found in Peru’s Nanchoc District, dating to the 7th–6th millennia BC. Dyed textile fragments, colored with indigo blue and dating to the 4th–3rd millennia BC, were uncovered at Huaca Prieta, also in Peru. In Pakistan, a string of eight copper beads from Mehrgarh, dated to the sixth millennium BC, was connected by a fragment of cotton thread. Although cotton has been grown for millennia, the cotton gin dramatically lowered production costs, making cotton widespread.

Production

Today, it is the most common natural fiber used in clothing. Global production is roughly 25 million tonnes (110 million bales) each year, covering about 2.5% of the world’s farmland. India leads the world in cotton production, while the United States has been the top exporter for many years. Four species of cotton are grown commercially, all domesticated long ago: - Gossypium hirsutum (upland cotton) comes from Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean, and southern Florida, and accounts for 90% of global production. - Gossypium barbadense (extra-long staple cotton) is native to tropical South America and makes up over 5% of production. - Gossypium arboreum (tree cotton) originates in India and Pakistan, contributing less than 2%. - Gossypium herbaceum (Levant cotton) is native to southern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, also under 2%.

Types

Hybrid varieties are also grown. The two New World species dominate modern production, but the two Old World species were widely used before the 1900s. Cotton fibers naturally occur in white, brown, pink, and green, but many growing regions ban colored varieties out of concern that they could contaminate the genetics of white cotton. The word “cotton” ultimately comes from the Hebrew kuttṓnĕṯ, which ironically referred to clothing made of linen.

Etymology

In medieval Arabic, this term was the usual word for cotton. Marco Polo, in chapter 2 of his book, describes a province called Khotan in Turkestan (modern-day Xinjiang) where cotton grew abundantly. The word entered Romance languages around the mid-12th century and reached English a century later. Ancient Romans knew cotton fabric as an import, but it remained rare in Romance-speaking regions until later medieval imports from Arabic-speaking lands made it much cheaper.

The indigenous species Gossypium barbadense has been identified at a site in Peru’s Nanchoc District, dating to the 7th–6th millennia BC. Indigo-dyed textile fragments from Huaca Prieta, Peru, date to the 4th–3rd millennia BC. Cultivation of G. barbadense at Ancon, Peru, has been dated to around 4200 BC, and it became essential to coastal cultures like the Norte Chico, Moche, and Nazca. Cotton was grown upriver, made into nets, and traded with fishing villages for fish.

When the Spanish arrived in Mexico and Peru in the early 1500s, they found people growing cotton and wearing cotton clothing. Cotton bolls from a cave near Tehuacán, Mexico, have been dated to as early as 5500 BC. Domestication of Gossypium hirsutum in Mexico occurred between roughly 3400 and 2300 BC. During that period, people between the Río Santiago and Río Balsas grew, spun, wove, dyed, and sewed cotton.

What they did not use themselves was sent as tribute to Aztec rulers, amounting to about 116 million pounds (53,000 tonnes) annually. The oldest evidence of cotton use in the Old World comes from a few mineralized fibers found on a string of eight copper beads at the Neolithic site of Mehrgarh, at the foot of the Bolan Pass in Balochistan, Pakistan. Fragments of cotton textiles and spindle whorls from the 3rd millennium BC have been found at Mohenjo-daro in Sindh, Pakistan, and other Indus Valley civilization sites. This region is a likely place for the first cultivation of Gossypium arboreum, and cotton may have been a major export from it.

Microremains of cotton fibers, some dyed, have been discovered at Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley, dating to 5200 BC. These may be remnants of clothing, fabric containers, or cordage. Research suggests the cotton might have come from wild species in South Asia and been traded with the Indus Valley civilization. In Persia, cotton history goes back to the Achaemenid era (5th century BC), though sources on pre-Islamic cotton farming are scarce.

Cultivation was common in Merv, Ray, and Pars. Persian poems, especially Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh, mention cotton (called “panbe”). Marco Polo, in the 13th century, listed cotton among Persia’s major products. The French traveler John Chardin, who visited Safavid Persia in the 17th century, praised the region’s vast cotton farms.