When and wear: the prehistory of clothing

ScienceAlert (Australia) ^ | Monday, September 1, 2008 | Simon Couper

[SunkenCiv]

The doctoral researcher from the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at ANU is simply making it clear that he's not concerned with the vicissitudes of fashion... Instead, he's fascinated by how humans came to develop clothing, and how that innovation might have in turn given our species an evolutionary edge over other hominids... He has credentials in medicine, psychology, prehistoric archaeology, and is completing a thesis in biological anthropology. This complicated curriculum vitae makes sense in light of Gilligan's project: his drive to understand the physiological, psychological and prehistoric aspects of clothing... "Modern humans have been around 200,000 years, and near-modern humans have been around for a few million years, but what we see as modern civilised existence began very recently, only in the last five to 10,000 years... The other important thing that prehistory tells us is that the natural environment we're used to is fairly recent as well -- it's the post-glacial environment of the last 10,000 years. For all of the time humans have been around, the world has been going through a series of ice ages... We have no clothing from the ice age, which ended about 10,000 years ago," Gilligan says. "The oldest clothing remains in the world in the Middle East dated to around 9,500 years ago. That's one reason archaeologically that we haven't been looking at clothing from prehistory -- it's just not there." ...We may not have records of clothing from before 9,500 years ago, but we do have evidence of the kinds of tools required to make fitted garments -- primitive hide-scraping and cutting devices and needles.

[SunkenCiv]

First Farmers Wanted Clothes, Not Food
The Discovery Channel | 10-15-2007 | Anna Sellah
Posted on 10/18/2007 8:47:45 PM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1913338/posts

Prehistoric Women: Not So Simple, Not So Strange
New Scientist | 3-28-2007 | Germaine Greer
Posted on 03/31/2007 11:03:47 AM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1809862/posts

[SunkenCiv]

looks like I’ve got some archival topics to check:

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/age/index

[SunkenCiv]

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[Daffynition]

Gotcha covered.............

[Arthur McGowan]

I have a theory:

“Ow! Muh balls!”

(”Idiocracy” reference.)

[colorado tanker]

The first womens clothing was bikinis. I saw the historical records - in the movies.

[Little Bill]

Gene advertising, do a search on Neolithic string skirts, if you got it flaunt it.

[bert]

Wrinkle cream preceded clothing.

[Little Bill]

http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/stringskirt2.html

No Skives.

[colorado tanker]

Neolithic string skirts

Wowser. A woman wearing that thing is about as close to Ferengian as she can get.

[Defiant]

Gilligan’s guess is that human hair loss came about as a side-effect of a slowing of the expression of the genetic code in our species, meaning that we’re essentially juvenile mammals in physiological terms, if not in mental capacity.

I have seen it postulated that being hairless had to do with the ability to sweat being developed, which was necessary in order to do long-distance chases of animals. Furry animals chase in short, quick bursts. Humans tracked down animals for hours and days, and had to run, slow and steady, in the heat. That is supposedly why we can do marathons.

[Little Bill]

I don't know how you old are but in my time there were rather large fathers and brothers. From what I have read in Eastern Europe, girls, until recently, a bit more covered though, were required to to wear a string dress after their first period but not before then or after they were married.

In England the girls used to drag the boys in to the woods, ah, to be 16 again, and the bands would be announced when they got the Green Dress. My Aunt commented on the swelling bellies before the Priest came and made it final, family genealogist.

[blam]

Venus of Willendorf

There's an argument about whether that's braided hair or a knit cap on her head...the figurine is 24,000 years old.

[Little Bill]

Braided hair, absolutely. A young mans fantasy, do people really think that people in that age are that much different than those of to day in certain ideas. I think not.

[Fractal Trader]

I seem to recall that human feet have shown signs of wearing shoes that date back many more thousands of years than this.

[Billthedrill]

I don't get it - we actually do have historical evidence. Here:

It's good enough for me.

[a fool in paradise]

This complicated curriculum vitae makes sense in light of Gilligan's project: his drive to understand the physiological, psychological and prehistoric aspects of clothing...

But the modern talking point is that transvestitism is somehow "genetic".

[LadyDoc]

A bit of nonsense, since robes/shawls didn't require needles...and he ignores that rope making to carry things probably goes back a lot longer...

and not all clothing is made of leather or fabric.as these guys show you gotta protect the family jewels...

[SunkenCiv]

That rings a bell... hmm, I don’t seem to find it on the hard drive, but I’m sure there’s an FR topic about it from about 2004? Until then...

Our Ancestors Had Floppy, Flexible Feet
http://www.livescience.com/animals/081119-gibbon-feet.html

Tanzania: Prehistoric Footprints Stir Fresh Controversy
http://allafrica.com/stories/200807220050.html

How our ancestors were like gorillas
http://www.physorg.com/news115568047.html

Orang-utan study suggests that upright walking may have started in the trees
Not Exactly Rocket Science ‘blog | March 21, 2009 | Ed Yong
Posted on 03/25/2009 6:34:19 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2214894/posts

Early humans may have used makeup, seafood
AP Science via Yahoo! | 10-17-07 | Seth Borenstein
Posted on 10/17/2007 11:22:47 AM PDT by Pharmboy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1912573/posts