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About 10,000 years ago, people learned how to make cloth, wool, cotton, falx, or hemp was first spun into a thin thread, using a spindle. The thread was then woven into a fabric. The earliest weaving machines probably consisted of little more than a pair of sticks that held a set of parallel threads, called the warp, while the cross-thread, called the weft, was inserted. Later machines called looms had roads that separated the threads to allow the weft to be inserted more easily . A piece of wood, called the shuttle, holding a spool of thread, was passed between the separated threads. The basic principles of spinning and weaving have stayed the same until the present day, though during the industrial revolution of the 18th century many ways were found of automating the processes. With new machines such as the spinning mule, many threads could be spun at the same time, and, with the help of devices like the flying shuttle, broad pieces of cloth could be woven at great speed.