One of the first things that most people notice when comparing the behavior of chimpanzees and humans is that chimps are naked while humans generally wear clothes.
Humans—Homo sapiens—first evolved in Africa and were biologically adapted to life in a warm climate. When humans left Africa and began their migrations north into Europe and Asia, they had to adapt to a colder environment. There are two important innovations that made this adaptation possible: (1) the domestication of fire, and (2) the invention of clothing.
Unfortunately, clothing does not survive for very long in the archaeological record. Unlike items made from stone, bone, or shell, clothing tends to disintegrate rather rapidly. In some sites, archaeologists have uncovered clothing that was used 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, but this is long after the human diaspora from Africa. While the archaeological record is mute on when humans first started to wear clothing, modern genetics provides some interesting clues. There are two subspecies of lice which live on humans: Pediculus humanus capitis (the head louse) and Pediculus humanus corporis (the body louse). Body lice evolved from head lice and the two subspecies do not interbreed. In his book Human Evolution, Robin Dunbar explains:
“The two subspecies do not interbreed because they occupy different habitats on the body: one is confined to hair on the head, whereas the other lives in our clothing (i.e. on the trunk). The fact that the latter can survive only when clothing is available for it to hide in suggests that it evolved after humans began wearing clothes on a regular basis.”
In his book The Origins of Language: A Slim Guide, James Hurford reports:
“Modern human body lice live in clothes, not in hair, and DNA studies can date the genetic divergence of body lice from head lice to as recent as 170,000 years ago. Before that, humans and all their ancestors went naked. The adoption of clothing marks a significant moment in the emergence of culture. It is likely that the first clothing was not for keeping warm, as these people were still in Africa, but carried information about the status of individuals, much as robes, for example, later on carried prestige.”
While some DNA studies have shown that the twosubspecies of lice had a common ancestor 170,000 years ago, as Hurford reports,other studies have suggested dates of 100,000 years ago and 72,000 years ago.
Since clothing is often absent in the archaeological record, archaeologists must infer the existence of clothing from other clues in the archaeological record. In their book From Lucy to Language, Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar report:
“Bone needles almost indistinguishable from modern sewing needles have been found at a 26,000-year-old site in Central Europe, and at western European sites dating to 23,000 years ago in the Solutrean period.”
As a part of their clothing ensemble, modern humans wear coverings on their feet known as shoes. When did humans first start wearing shoes? One of the important clues comes from biological anthropology and more specifically from the anatomical study of the foot bones of people who wear shoes and those who do not. Studies have found that some of the toe bones are less strongly built among people who wear shoes. Studies of the feet of early Homo sapiens in Europe (also known as Cro-Magnon) show that they were wearing shoes.
Clothing, of course, not only provides warmth in colder climates, but, like language and religion, is a symbol system. M. Danesi, in an essay in the Encyclopedia of Languages & Linguistics, writes:
“Clothing is more than just bodily covering for protection. It is a sign system that is interconnected with the other sign systems of a society through which such emotions, states, and variables such as attitudes, gender, age, social status, political beliefs, etc. can be encoded.”
In Textiles in Southwestern Prehistory, archaeologist Lynn Teague writes:
“Clothing can manipulate perceptions of social identity.”
Teague also writes:
“It is clothing more than anything else that people make that provides visible clues of individual and group social identity.”
In an article in American Antiquity, Christine VanPool, Todd VanPool, and Lauren Downs put it this way:
“Individuals use dress to send visual clues about their identities and to make suppositions about other people’s identities.”
In the relatively egalitarian hunting, fishing, and gathering societies, which were dominant through most of human history, clothing would indicate status differences, such as the difference between child/youth and adult, or unmarried and married individuals. Based on data from more modern hunting and gathering groups, clothing probably also reflected gender. If a man wished to take a woman’s role in the society, he would wear women’s clothing, and, a woman who wished to occupy a male role, would simply wear men’s clothing.
In the stratified societies which began to emerge following the adoption of agriculture, clothing became an indicator of social status and occupation. In other words, people could easily tell the upper classes from the lower classes.
Clothing is also associated with religion. M. Danesi writes:
“Like all social codes, clothing is interconnected with the other codes of a culture. For instance, it is intertwined with religious ceremonies and rituals—the clothing worn at a religious service, during certain religious feasts and festivals, for example, is designed to send out specific kinds of religious messages.”
With the development of the complex societies of early civilizations, full-time religious specialists appeared and their status in society was indicated by special clothing. Some religious traditions today maintain a practice of special clothing for their religious specialists. Some examples of this would include the robes worn by Buddhist monks and the distinctive collar worn by some Christian priests.
In complex societies in which there are several religious traditions, clothing may be used to indicate religious affiliation. Some examples of this would include the turban worn by Sikh men, and the head coverings worn by Muslim women.
Clothing is not just about warmth, but it can also be intended to conceal certain parts of the human body. Christian missionaries, both Catholic and Protestant, for example, were shocked and offended when they encountered non-European peoples who did not share their nudity taboos. In many cultures, women do not cover their breasts and men may not always cover their genitalia.
In societies in which clothing, and nearly full body covering, is the norm, nudity may be used in a symbolic fashion. In some religious ceremonies, such as modern Wiccan ceremonies for example, the participants may be skyclad (nude). As a nature-oriented religion, many modern Wiccans feel that nudity allows them to feel closer to the natural world. Nudity is also used in some political protests. M. Danesi writes: “
The nude body is, thus, a sign. This is why visual artists have always had a fascination with the nude figure.”
In many societies around the world, clothing is used to indicate when a person is in mourning. In the United States, from the mid-to-late nineteenth century, there were four periods of mourning for women. During deep mourning, women were to have limited social interaction and were to wear black clothing devoid of any decoration. After a year and a day, women entered a phase called “slighting the mourning” during which they were allowed to interact more freely. This was followed by “ordinary” mourning in which the black dresses could be embellished. And finally, there was “half” mourning in which grays, white, lavender, and violet colors could be worn.
In the nineteenth-century United States, women were expected to mourn the death of a husband for two years or more, while men were expected to mourn the death of a wife for at least three months.
More Human Origins
Human Origins: Humans as naked apes
Human Origins: Bipedalism
Human Origins: Sex
Human Origins: Symbolism
Human Origins: Cultural Evolution
Human Origins: Rock Art as Proto-Writing
Human Origins: The Large Brain
Human Origins: Teeth