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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Ancient Clothing - (c. 400,000 B.C.E)

Early humans cover their nakedness.

Around 400,000 years ago, Homo sapiens devised a solution to protect the vulnerable naked human body from the environment - clothes. Anthropologists believe the earliest clothing was made form the fur of hunted animals or leaves creatively wrapped around the body to keep out the cold, wind and rain.

Determining the date of this invention is difficult, although sewing needles made form animal bone dating from about 30,000 B.C.E have been found by arceheologists. However, genetic analysis  of human body lice reveals that they evolved at the same time as clothing. Scientists originally thought the lice evovled 107,000 years ago, but further investigations placed their evolution a few hundred thousand years earlier.

Clothing has changed dramatically over the century, although its ancient role as an outward indication of the status, wealth, and belief of the warrior in as important as ever. During the industrial revolution the textile industry was the first to be mechanised, enabling incerasingly elaborate designs to be made at a faste rate. In the 21st century, mechanization has allowed sophisticated pratical clothing to be deviced to protect us from dangerous such as extreme whether, chemicals, insects, and outer space. Without clothe we would not have able to explore and exploit our world and the surrounding univese to the extent that we have.

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