Archaeologists in China’s Hubei province have uncovered a large-scale industrial facility dating back to the Warring States Period (approx. 475–221 BCE). The site includes the foundations of several long-houses designed specifically for mass silk production.
The most remarkable find is a collection of carbonized wooden loom parts and specialized bone needles still threaded with silk fibers. This discovery proves that the industrialization of silk—a key commodity for the later Silk Road—was already well underway centuries before the Han Dynasty, with complex weaving machines and dedicated labor forces.