Upper Paleolithic decorated apparel is viewed from the artist’s perspective. Credit Mariana Ariza, edited
Why did we start dressing to express ourselves and please some, from stone devices that made animal skins for people to use as thermal insulation to the development of bone trends and eyed pins to produce fitted and adorned clothes?
Researchers examine the transition of clothes from a merely a form of security to a symbol of social and cultural personality, highlighting the development of eyed knives around 40, 000 years ago as a pioneering technology. This development significantly impacted how societies evolved and interacted, allowing for the adornment of clothing, a transition from pragmatic apply to expressing personal and group names.
Archaeological Insight Into Clothing’s Social Role
Clothing is thought to be a significant factor in shaping what makes us human. Our ancestors had access to more parts of the world, various resources and environments, and the ability to communicate with a wider area with the development of clothing. Now, clothing is associated with personality and reputation. According to historical data, clothing was not a necessary component of society or cultures, aside from thermal ones.
Watched pins dating back to the last ice age. Gilligan and Associates 2024
Advances in Prehistoric Clothing Using Technology
A team of researchers led by Dr. Ian Gilligan, an Honorary Associate in the field of anthropology at the University of Sydney, led by Dr. Ian Gilligan.
“data-gt-translate-attributes =” ] { “attribute”: “data-cmtooltip”, “format”: “html” }] “tabindex=” 0 “role =”link “> University of Sydney, are the first to suggest that eyed needles were a new technological innovation used to adorn clothing for social and cultural purposes, marking the major shift from clothes as protection to clothes as an expression of identity.
According to Dr. Ian Gilligan, “eyed needle tools are an important development in prehistoric history because they document a transition in the function of clothing from utilitarian to social purposes.”
Cultural Shifts in Clothing Can Be Selected.
In their paper,” Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dress,” Dr. Gilligan and his co-authors reexamine the evidence of recent discoveries in the development of clothing.
” Why do we wear clothes? We assume that it’s part of being human, but once you look at different cultures, you realize that people existed and functioned perfectly adequately in society without clothes,” Dr. Gilligan says”. What piques my interest is the transition from being a physical necessity in some settings to a social necessity in all others.
Dr. Ian Gilligan, University of Sydney. Credit: Ian Gilligan
Around 40, 000 years ago, the first eyed needles were discovered in Siberia. Eyed needles, one of the most recognizable Paleolithic artifacts of the Stone Age, were more difficult to make than bone awls, which were sufficient for fitting clothing. Bone awls are tools made of animal bones that are aimed precisely. The perforated hole (eye ) on modified bone awls makes it easier to sew thread or thread.
The development of eyed needles may reflect the production of more complex, layered clothing as well as the adornment of clothes by attaching beads and other small decorative items to garments, as evidence suggests bone awls were already being used to make tailored clothes.
Use of decorative clothing in Cold Climates
We are aware that clothing was only worn on an ad hoc basis up until the most recent glacial cycle. We find hide scrapers and stone scrapers as classic tools for the various eras of the last ice ages, and we associate them with them,” Dr. Gilligan explains.
In the later part of the last ice age in colder parts of Eurasia, people were forced to wear clothing all the time to survive, according to Dr. Gilligan and his co-authors, because traditional body decoration techniques, like body painting with ochre or deliberate scarification, were n’t possible during the latter part of the last ice age.
” That’s why the appearance of eyed needles is particularly important because it signals the use of clothing as decoration,” Dr. Gilligan says”. Eye needles would have been very useful for the extremely fine sewing that was necessary to decorate clothing.
The Social and Aesthetic Purposes of Clothing
Therefore, clothing evolved to fulfill both a social, aesthetic, and cultural function as well as a practical need for protection and comfort from external elements.
Larger and more complex societies were created as a result of people moving to warmer climates and working together with their tribe or community based on shared clothing patterns and symbols. The skills involved in making clothing made it possible to live a more sustainable lifestyle and help human communities survive for the long term and prosper.
Clothing Implications in Modern Society: Psychological Implications
Regardless of the weather, covering the human body is a social practice that has endured. Beyond the introduction of clothing as dress, Dr. Gilligan’s future work explores the psychological effects and functions of wearing clothing.
We assume that if we do n’t dress in public, we feel comfortable wearing clothes and uncomfortable wearing them. However, how do wearing clothes affect how we perceive ourselves, how we perceive ourselves as people, and perhaps how we perceive the world around us?
This article was published in Science Advances.
” data-gt-translate-attributes =” ] { “attribute” :”data-cmtooltip””, format” :”html” }]” tabindex=” 0″ role =”link “>Science Advances.
Reference:” Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dress” by Ian Gilligan, Francesco d’Errico, Luc Doyon, Wei Wang and Yaroslav V. Kuzmin, 28 June 2024, Science Advances.