When Did People Start To Wear Clothes?
Over the years, there has been deep research conducted on the invention of clothes, yet the revelations are shallow. Some argue that finding out if our ancient ancestors wore fur or leather won’t advance humanity. Others think that it will allow us to understand the traditional roles, or rather non-traditional roles, males and females had in ancient society.
During a recent gathering with my friends, I raised a question that had been circling my mind for a long time-” When did we begin to wear clothes?”. My friend’s answer was “Why should we focus on that if we can’t know for sure? Perhaps, it is better to focus on what we do know and its impact”. I thought about what my friend said and decided to put my curiosity to rest. Yet, late at night, the questions kept haunting me, along with my embarrassing third-grade memories. When did humans realize they needed to wear clothes? How did they decide how to wear them? And why did I think that cotton candy was the hair of my grandmother on a stick?
As much as we like to believe that cavemen and cavewomen were draped in thick furs, archaeological evidence of what our Stone Age ancestors wore is relatively thin.
Organic materials generally don’t preserve well, making it challenging to figure out when the use of clothing began. However, anthropologists give estimates that range between 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. Very specific, I know…
A 2011 genetic study of lice suggested that clothing lice began to genetically diverge from human head lice around 170,000 years ago. Yikes! This study proposed a date for when we started to wear clothes. Therefore, it is assumed that humans were wearing clothes before major migrations out of Africa.
But Hold your hangers! The earliest possible evidence for clothing is stone tools found at archaeological sites. Gran Dolina, an archaeological site where stone tools were found, is located in the Spanish Atapuerca Mountains. The site is also associated with our Homo Sapiens ancestors and dates to around 780,000 years ago. Yet, it’s likely humans like the Neanderthals, which lived in cold climates before and alongside Homo Sapiens, created clothing long ago to protect themselves from the extreme weather.
What did our ancient ancestors wear and what were their clothes made of?
The first clothes were made from natural elements, such as animal skin, furs, leaves, bones, and shells. It is estimated that ancient clothes were often draped or tied. Some people assume that the tunic was one of the first-ever garments to be worn.
If you think fire is cool just wait till you see this needle…
The Cro-Magnon people were considered modern humans who migrated to Europe from West Asia, around 50,000 years ago. The Cro-Magnon people have possibly discovered the most significant discovery aside from fire- the needle. Needles at the time were made out of slivers of animal bone; they were sharpened to a point at one end and had an eye at the other end. The Cro-Magnon people were known for developing more efficient tools. It is thought that the needle enabled them to sew pieces of fur into better-fitting garments.
In 1991, the remains of a human who died 5,300 years ago, were discovered in the mountains of Austria, near the border with Italy. The body was of a male hunter and his clothes had been preserved in ice. Although the hunter appeared later than the early Cro-Magnon human, his clothing served as evidence of the use of needles.
Archaeologists found that the hunter wore sewn leggings and a thin leather loincloth, which was wrapped around his genitals and buttocks. Turns out they knew about underwear… Moreover, he wore a long-sleeved fur coat that was sewn from many pieces of fur, with the fur on the outside. On his feet the man wore animal hide short boots, stitched together with hiding and stuffed with grass, probably to keep his feet warm in the snow.
And what did women wear?
There isn’t much evidence as to what females were wearing at the time, but ancient paintings and carvings have served as a basis for researchers. Deep in a cave in Grotte De La Vache, France, a 12,000-year-old carved antler was discovered. The carved antler depicted a reindeer being hunted by 3 humans. Jean-Pierre Duhard, an archeological gender identification expert, reviewed the artifacts and stated that one of the humans appeared to be a female. Hence, it is estimated women wore draped furs and skirts made from scraped animal hide.
The carved antler was not a unique finding because of the woman’s clothes. It was intriguing because the woman was carrying a weapon and not hunting alone. The common assumption among archaeologists was that prehistoric men hunted while women gathered and reared their young. The carving suggests that women played a more prominent role in the harvesting of animals than originally believed.
It was a 2018 discovery in an excavated burial of an individual in Peru from 9,000 years ago that truly shifted the perception of many archaeologists. The human was thought to be a man and was found with an impressive kit of stone tools suggesting he was an ancient hunter. Yet, further analysis revealed that the body belonged to a female.
This finding led to the examination of all the excavations in the Americas from the late Pleistocene and early Holocene periods. The research revealed that out of 27 individuals that were buried with hunting tools 41% (11) were female and the remaining 59% (16) were male. Further statistical analysis revealed that between 30 and 50 percent of hunters could have been female. This revelation led some researchers to believe that hunting was relatively gender-neutral. In addition, it showed that the role of females in ancient society might not have been evaluated properly.
Over the years, there have been some archaeologists who have argued that the “traditional” roles of hunter-gatherer groups since the 19th century don’t necessarily stretch into our deep past. Still, when it comes to ancient history and archaeology we are always playing a guessing game. We don’t certainly know whether females were hunters or not, and what was their role in society. Nevertheless, we do know that when we are evaluating science we are always imprinting our own biases onto the data that we review. If archaeologists expect that only males were hunters they are going to look for evidence that supports that. It is possible that if females were hunters, this information could have just not been acknowledged.
Perhaps, what our ancestors wore is important after all. Not only do ancient clothes serve as a reminder to question the data we think is reliable, but they also emphasize that we are all subjected to our own biases.
