Clothing

Garments, fabrics or other coverings worn by humans over their bodies. The materials that early humans used to create the first clothing were probably those they found around them such as pliable grasses, plant leaves and animal skins. Because these materials decompose so early it is difficult to determine when humans first created clothing. Researchers studying human lice have suggested that clothing could have become widespread as early as 6,50,000 years ago, while other studies suggest an origin of about 1,70,000 years ago. These time periods correspond to either the beginning or the end of an Ice Age, indicating that clothing may have first developed as a way of coping with colder climates.

The first items of clothing were most probably fairly crude in their construction, draped around the body and tied with sinew. The development of the needle around 35,000 years ago by Homo sapiens allowed the creation of more complex clothing-garments that could be layered and tailored to fit certain parts of the body. It has been hypothesized that this technology may have been what enabled Homo sapiens to flourish as a species over the Neanderthals, who were more adapted to the cold biologically and thus did not have the impetus to refine the cutting and sewing techniques that were needed for warmer cloths.

Although clothing may have been created out of necessity initially, it has since become far more than a means of adaptation to the environment. Through out history it has been used to protect a wearer from the elements, but also as signaling differences in wealth, class, sex or membership of a particular group.