Clothes Make the (Hu) Man

Discoveries at a cave in the Republic of Georgia, reported on page 1359 of this week's issue of Science , suggest that humans acquired the skill to weave plant fibers into textiles more than 30,000 years ago. The first clothes, worn at least 70,000 years ago and perhaps much earlier, were proba...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inScience (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 325; no. 5946; p. 1329
Main Author Balter, Michael
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published American Association for the Advancement of Science 11.09.2009
Subjects
Archaeological sites
Caves
News of the Week
Plant fibers
Textiles
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Summary:Discoveries at a cave in the Republic of Georgia, reported on page 1359 of this week's issue of Science , suggest that humans acquired the skill to weave plant fibers into textiles more than 30,000 years ago. The first clothes, worn at least 70,000 years ago and perhaps much earlier, were probably made of animal skins and helped protect early humans from the ice ages. Then at some point people learned to weave plant fibers into textiles. But when? The answer is not certain, because cloth is rarely preserved at archaeological sites. Now discoveries at a cave in the Republic of Georgia, reported on page 1359 of this week's issue of Science , suggest that this skill was acquired more than 30,000 years ago.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.325_1329a