Cave discovery reveals how long people have been wearing clothes



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A new archaeological discovery has shed light on the fashion of primitive man.

Scientists have found rare evidence of ancient people wearing clothes and their style: Around 90,000 to 120,000 years ago, humans dressed in the skins and furs of carnivorous animals, including sand foxes, golden jackals and feral cats, wrote researchers in a study published Thursday in the journal iScience.

The study authors were able to determine old fashion trends based on 62 bone tools they found in a Moroccan cave, some of which appear to have been used not for food but to create clothing.

“I didn’t expect to find them. I was initially studying this assemblage to examine animal bones to reconstruct the human diet, ”senior author and postdoctoral researcher Emily Yuko Hallett told CNN. “And when I was going through them – there were about 12,000 animal bones – I started to notice these bones which were very different in shape. It was not a natural form. And they had reflections on them, and they were shiny, and they had streaks (grooves or scratches) on them.

The animal bones that the cave men and women threw away after consuming the creature and the bones they used as tools are distinct, as the tools have a sheen and are somewhat spatula-shaped, added Hallett.

The excavation of the Smugglers' Cave, where bone tools used in leather-making - the subject of a new study - were discovered.
Excavations at the Smugglers’ Cave, where bone tools used in leather-making – the subject of a new study – have been discovered.
via REUTERS

“The reason people like to use these tools is that they don’t puncture the skin, so you end up with intact skin,” she said.

Other evidence of human style at the time came in the form of the cut marks Hallett and his team found on other bones in the cave. The marks show that the former cave residents removed the skins of various local predators. The bones of cattle-like animals in the cave, meanwhile, bore marks indicating that they had been used for meat.

“I am very excited about skinning marks on carnivores because I have never seen this pattern described before. And I hope archaeologists working at much older sites are starting to research this pattern as well, ”Hallett said.

Scientists are excavating the Smugglers Cave, where the oldest known archaeological evidence of human clothing making has been found.
Scientists are excavating the Smugglers Cave, where the oldest known archaeological evidence of human clothing making has been found.
via REUTERS

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