Mehrgarh

The presence of Gossypium barbadense has been identified at a site in Nanchoc District, Peru, and dated to the seventh to sixth millennia BC, while indigo blue-dyed textile fragments dated to the fourth to third millennia BC, having been found at Huaca Prieta in Peru.

Fragments of a cotton thread used to connect a string of eight copper beads and dated to the sixth millennium BC have been found in Mergar, Kachi, Pakistan.

Although cultivated since antiquity, it was the invention of the cotton gin that lowered the cost of production and led to its widespread use, and it is the most widely used natural fiber cloth in clothing today.

Current estimates for world production are about twenty-five million tons, or a hundred and ten million bales annually, accounting for two-point five percent of the world's arable land.