Prehistoric Clothing

T he first known humans to make clothing, Neanderthals, survived

from about 200,000 b.c.e. to about 30,000 b.c.e. During this time
the earth’s temperature rose and fell dramatically, creating a series of ice
ages throughout the northern areas of Europe and Asia where Neander-
thals lived. With their compact, muscular bodies that conserved body
heat, Neanderthals were well adapted to the cold climate of their day.
But it was their large brain that served them best. Neanderthals learned
to make crude but effective tools from stone. Tools such as spears and
axes made Neanderthals strong hunters, and they hunted the hairy
mammoths, bears, deer, musk oxen, and other mammals that shared
their environment. At some point, Neanderthals learned how to use the
thick, furry hides from these animals to keep themselves warm and dry.
With this discovery, clothing was born.
Evidence of the very first clothing is mostly indirect. Researchers
have located changes to the DNA of lice that indicate they had moved
from the heads of ancient humans onto what must have been their cloth-
ing. These lice date to about 170,000 b.c.e., during the second-to-last
Ice Age. Archeologists believe that early humans cut hides into shapes
they liked, making holes for the head and perhaps the arms, and draped
the furs over their bodies. Soon their methods likely grew more sophisti-
cated. They may have used thin strips of hide to tie the furs about them-
selves, perhaps in the way that belts are used today.
Cro-Magnons, considered by most scientists to be the next stage in
human development, emerged around 40,000 years ago and made ad-
vances on the clothing of the Neanderthals. The smarter Cro-Magnon

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Prehistoric Clothing

This cave painting depicts the

slaughter of an animal whose
skin would be used for clothing
and whose meat would be used
for food. © Robert Harding
Productions/Robert
Harding Picture Library Ltd/
Alamy.

people learned how to make fire and cook food, and they developed
finer, more efficient tools. Sharp awls, or pointed tools, were used to
punch small holes in animal skins, which were laced together with hide
string. In this way they probably developed the earliest coverings for the
body, legs, head, and feet. It is thought that the first assembled piece of
clothing was the tunic. A tunic is made from two pieces of rectangu-
lar animal hide bound together on one short side with a hole left for
the head. This rough garment was placed over the head and the stitched
length lay on the shoulders, with the remainder hanging down. The arms
stuck through the open sides, and the garment was either closed with a
belt or additional ties were placed at the sides to hold the garment on the
body. This tunic was the ancestor of the shirt.
One of the most important Cro-Magnon inventions was the needle.
Needles were made out of slivers of animal bone; they were sharpened
to a point at one end and had an eye (opening) at the other end. With
a needle, Cro-Magnons could sew carefully cut pieces of fur into better
fitting garments. Evidence suggests that Cro-Magnon people developed
close-fitting pants and shirts that would protect them from the cold, as
well as shawls, hoods, and long boots. Because they had not learned how
to tan hides to soften them, the animal skin would have been stiff at first,
but with repeated wearings it would become very soft and comfortable.

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 Prehistoric Clothing

Jacquetta Hawkes, author of The Atlas of Early Man, believes that Cro-
Magnon clothes approached those of modern Eskimos in their excel-
lence of construction.
Much of what is known about early clothing is a patchwork of very
little evidence and good guesses. Only fragments of very early clothing have
survived, so archeologists have relied on cave drawings, carved figures, and
such things as the imprint of stitched-together skins in a fossilized mud
floor to develop their picture of early clothing. The discovery of the remains
of a man who died 5,300 years ago in the mountains of Austria, near the
border with Italy, helped confirm much of what these archeologists had dis-
covered. The body of this male hunter had been preserved in ice for more
than 5,000 years, and many fragments of his clothing had survived.
Archeologists pieced together his garments, and they found that “the
iceman,” as he became known, wore a complex outfit. Carefully sewn
leggings covered his lower legs, and a thin leather loincloth was wrapped
around his genitals and buttocks. Over his body the man wore a long-
sleeved fur coat that extended nearly to his knees. The coat was sewn
from many pieces of fur, with the fur on the outside. It was likely held
closed by some form of belt. On his feet the man wore animal hide short
boots, stitched together with hide and stuffed with grass, probably to
keep his feet warm in the snow. On his head the man wore a simple cap
of thick fur. Though the iceman discovered in Austria appeared much
later than the earliest Cro-Magnon person, the way his clothing was
made confirmed the basic techniques and materials of early clothing.
The ravages of time have destroyed most direct evidence of the clothing
of early humans, however.

For More Information

Barber, E.J.W. Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic
and Bronze Ages with Special Reference to the Aegean. New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 1991.
Corbishley, Mike. What Do We Know about Prehistoric People? New York: Peter
Bedrick Books, 1994.
Fowler, Brenda. Iceman: Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man
Found in an Alpine Glacier. New York: Random House, 2000.
Goode, Ruth. People of the Ice Age. New York: Crowell-Collier Press, 1973.
Hawkes, Jacquetta. The Atlas of Early Man. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976.
Lambert, David, and the Diagram Group. The Field Guide to Early Man. New
York: Facts on File, 1987.
Wilkinson, Phil, ed. Early Humans. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 2005.

Fashion, Costume and Culture, 2nd edition 7

(c) 2013 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.