History of clothing and textiles

The study of the history of clothing and textiles traces the development, use, and availability of clothing and textiles over human history. Clothing and textiles reflect the materials and technologies available in different civilizations at different times. The variety and distribution of clothing and textiles within a society reveal social customs and culture.

The wearing of clothing is exclusively a human characteristic and is a feature of most human societies. There has always been some disagreement among scientists on when humans began wearing clothes, but studies involving the evolution of body lice suggest it started sometime around 170,000 years ago. Anthropologists believe that animal skins and vegetation were adapted into coverings as protection from cold, heat, and rain, especially as humans migrated to new climates.

Textile history is almost as old as human civilization, and as time has passed, the history of textile has been more enriched. Silk weaving was introduced to India circa 400 AD, whereas cotton spinning dates back to 3000 BCE in India.

Textiles can be felt or spun fibers made into yarn and subsequently netted, looped, knit or woven to make fabrics, which appeared in the Middle East during the late Stone Age. From ancient times to the present day, methods of textile production have continually evolved, and the choices of textiles available have influenced how people carried their possessions, clothed themselves, and decorated their surroundings.Jenkins, pp. 1–6.

Sources available for the study of clothing and textiles include material remains discovered via archaeology; representation of textiles and their manufacture in art; and documents concerning the manufacture, acquisition, use, and trade of fabrics, tools, and finished garments. Scholarship of textile history, especially its earlier stages, is part of material culture studies.

Prehistoric development

The development of textile and clothing in prehistory has been the subject of a number of scholarly studies since the late 20th century. These sources have helped to provide a coherent history of these prehistoric developments. Nonetheless, scientists have never agreed on when humans began wearing clothes and the estimates suggested by various experts have ranged greatly, from 40,000 to 3 million years ago.

Recent studies by Ralf Kittler, Manfred Kayser and Mark Stoneking—anthropologists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology—have attempted to constrain the most recent date of the introduction of clothing with an indirect method relying on lice. The rationale for this method of dating stems from the fact that the human body louse ('' P. humanus corporus'') cannot live outside of clothing, dying after only a few hours without shelter. This strongly implies that the date of the body louse's speciation from its parent, the human louse (''Pediculus humanus''), can have taken place no earlier than the earliest human adoption of clothing. This date, at which the body louse diverged from both its parent species and its sibling subspecies, the head louse ('' P. humanus capitus''), can be determined by the number of mutations each has developed during the intervening time. Such mutations occur at a known rate and the date of last-common-ancestor for two species can therefore be estimated from the difference in number of their respective mutations. These studies have produced dates ranging from 40,000 to 170,000 years ago, with a greatest likelihood of speciation lying at about 107,000 years ago.

Kittler, Kayser and Stoneking suggest that the invention of clothing may have coincided with the northward migration of modern ''Homo sapiens'' away from the warm climate of Africa, which is thought to have begun between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. A second group of researchers, also relying on the genetic clock, estimate that clothing originated between 30,000 and 114,000 years ago. It is important to note that some of these estimates predate the first known human exodus from Africa. However, other Hominidae species, now extinct, may have also worn clothes and appear to have migrated earlier. It follows that the lice which presently infest human clothing may have first been acquired by ''Homo sapiens'' in colder climates from the bodies or discarded clothing of these cousin hominins.

Dating with direct archeological evidence produces dates consistent with those hinted at by lice. In September 2021, scientists reported evidence of clothes being made from 90,000 to 120,000 years ago based on findings in deposits in Morocco. However, despite these archaeological indications and genetic evidence, there is no single estimate that is widely accepted.

Cave paintings and pictorial evidence suggest the existence of dress in the Paleolithic period, around 30,000 years ago, though these were skin drapes. Textile clothing came to notice around 27,000 years ago, while actual textile fragments from 7000 B.C. have been discovered by archeologists.

Early adoption of apparel

Sewing needles have been dated to at least 50,000 years ago (Denisova Cave, Siberia)—and are likely to have been made by '' H. Denisova/H. Altai'', about 10,000 years before the arrival of Neanderthal and human groups in the cave. The oldest possible example is 60,000 years ago, a needlepoint (missing stem and eye) found in Sibudu Cave, South Africa. Other early examples of needles dating from 41,000 to 15,000 years ago are found in multiple locations, e.g. Slovenia, Russia, China, Spain, and France.

The earliest dyed flax fibers have been found in a prehistoric cave in Georgia and date back to 36,000.

The 25,000-year-old Venus Figurine "Venus of Lespugue", found in southern France in the Pyrenees, depicts a cloth or twisted fiber skirt. Some other Western Europe figurines were adorned with basket hats or caps, belts were worn at the waist, and a strap of cloth wrapped around the body right above the breast. Eastern European figurines wore belts, hung low on the hips and sometimes string skirts. However, according to archeologists James M. Adovasio, Soffer and Hyland, the garments are more likely ritual wear, real or imagined, which served as a signifier of distinct social categories.

Archaeologists have discovered artifacts from the same period that appear to have been used in the textile arts: net gauges from 5000 B.C., spindle needles, and weaving sticks.

Ancient textiles and clothing

Knowledge of ancient textiles and clothing has expanded in the recent past due to modern technological developments. The first actual textile, as opposed to skins sewn together, was probably felt. The first known textile of South America was discovered in Guitarrero Cave in Peru. It was woven out of vegetable fiber and dates back to 8,000 B.C.E. Surviving examples of Nålebinding, another early textile method, have been found in Israel, and date from 6500 B.C.

Looms

From prehistory through the early Middle Ages, for most of Europe, the Near East and North Africa, two main types of loom dominated textile production. These are the warp-weighted loom and the two-beam loom. The length of the beam determined the width of the cloth woven upon the loom, and could be as wide as 2–3 meters. Early woven clothing was often made of full loom widths draped, tied, or pinned in place.

Preservation

Knowledge of cultures varies greatly with the climatic conditions to which archeological deposits are exposed; the Middle East, South America and the arid fringes of China have provided many very early samples in good condition, along with textile impressions in clay, and graphic portrayals. In northern Eurasia, peat bogs, rock salt mines, oak coffins, and permafrost also preserved textiles, with whole Neolithic garments surviving, Some of the most famous are those associated with Ötzi ("the Iceman"), along with artifacts associated with textile production. Early development of textiles in the Indian subcontinent, sub-Saharan Africa and other moist parts of the world remains unclear.

Textile trade in the ancient world

Throughout the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, the fertile grounds of the Eurasian Steppe provided a setting for a network of nomadic communities to develop and interact. The Steppe Route has always connected regions of the Asian continent with trade and transmission of culture, including clothing.

Around 114 B.C., the Han dynasty, initiated the Silk Road trade route. Geographically, the Silk Road or Silk Route is an interconnected series of ancient trade routes between Chang'an (today's Xi'an) in China, with Asia Minor and the Mediterranean extending over on land and sea. Trade on the Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the great civilizations of China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, the Indian subcontinent, and Rome, and helped to lay the foundations for the modern world. The exchange of luxury textiles was predominant on the Silk Road, which linked traders, merchants, pilgrims, monks, soldiers, nomads and urban dwellers from China to the Mediterranean Sea during various periods.

Ancient Near East

The earliest known woven textiles of the Near East may be flax fabrics used to wrap the dead; these were excavated at a Neolithic site at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia. Carbonized, and "protected by several layers of clay/plaster, in an anaerobic milieu.... They were 'baked', or 'steam cooked'" in a fire, and are radiocarbon dated to c. 6000 BC.Jenkins, pp. 39–47 Evidence exists of flax cultivation from c. 8000 BC in the Near East, but the breeding of sheep with a wooly fleece rather than hair occurs much later, c. 3000 BC. Well preserved linen textiles were found in the Cave of the Warrior and are dating around 3200 BC.

In Mesopotamia, the clothing of a regular Sumerian was very simple, especially in summer. In the winter, clothes were made of sheep fur. Even wealthy men were depicted with naked torsos, wearing only short skirts, known as ''kaunakes'', while women wore long dresses to their ankles. The king wore a tunic, and a coat that reached to his knees, with a belt in the middle. Over time, the development of the craft of wool weaving in Mesopotamia led to a great variety in clothing. Thus, towards the end of the 3rd millennium BC and later men wore tunics with short sleeves and even over the knees, with a belt (over which the rich wore a wool cloak). Women's dresses featured more varied designs: with or without sleeves, narrow or wide, usually long and without highlighting the body

Sumerian Statues from Eshnunna and Khafajah of Diyala region, Iraq Museum.jpg, Sumerian Statues of worshippers (males and females); 2800-2400 BC ( Early Dynastic period); National Museum of Iraq (Baghdad)

Sumerian Status from Tell Asmar, part of the Tell Asmar Hoard.jpg, The god Abu (?) and a female statuette; 2800-2400 BC (Early Dynastic period); from the Square Temple of Abu at Tell Asmar (ancient Eshnunna (Iraq)); National Museum of Iraq. The loin-cloth has become recognizably a skirt and the twisted tufts have shrunk to a fringe

Ebih-Il Louvre AO17551 n01.jpg, The '' Statue of Ebih-Il''; c. 2400 BCE; gypsum, schist, shells and lapis lazuli; height: 52.5 cm; Louvre (Paris)

Ancient India

Excavations of Indus Valley civilization sites to date have yielded a few twisted cotton threads, in the context of a connecting cord for a bead necklace. However, terracotta figurines uncovered at Mehrgarh show a male figure wearing what is commonly interpreted to be a turban. A figurine, from the site of Mohenjo-daro

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