Ice Age Fashion: The Dark Origins of Neanderthal Clothing

The Neanderthals had a good run. They existed from at least 200,000 years ago until about 42,000 years ago, just a few millennia after they began interbreeding with modern humans. After that window, all physical traces of it disappeared

During that period, however, Neanderthals would certainly have experienced some cold weather – so much so that it’s unlikely they would have walked around completely naked. Some studies have even shown that the The temperatures were probably too cold in certain eras in parts of Europe, all inhabitants survived without wearing clothing or using shelter, such as sleeping under fur beds.

The problem is that clothes are not made from materials that tend to last very long, even tens of thousands of years before the rise of fast fashion. And evidence such as needles has yet to be found linked to Neanderthals.

“The archaeological record in this case is very poor,” said Abel Moclán, archaeologist at the Regional Archaeological Museum in Madrid.

That record is so bad that some studies show that Neanderthals wore no clothing at all. Scientists studying the DNA of body lice, which live in clothing but feed on humans, found that the insects did not arise until about 72,000 to 42,000 years ago, when modern humans migrated from Africa. This may indicate that no clothing was present beforehand.

Still, despite the lack of much direct evidence of Neanderthal clothing, researchers have found some indirect signs that reveal what our near-human cousins ​​may have worn to keep warm – or to show off their own unique style.

Neanderthals may have hunted carnivores for their fur

An important line of evidence concerns the remains of carnivores, which are rarely associated with Neanderthal sites compared to the remains of herbivorous animals. Strikingly, hominins in the Neanderthal period did not appear to consume much meat from carnivores.

For a recent study published in Quaternary Science ReviewsMoclán and his colleagues examined 13,000 animal fossils associated with Neanderthal sites. They found only one case of a carnivore with clear tracks on the bones, in a sediment layer dated roughly between 71,000 and 77,000 years ago. These cut marks were made on the phalanx – the last toe bone before the claw – of a hyena found at the Navalmaíllo rock shelter north of Madrid.

Carnivores typically don’t have much meat on their claws, so it’s unlikely that these butcher spurs were made to extract meat. Furthermore, Moclán says the marks indicate that the people who cut them were trying to pull out the hyena’s fur.

“It can only be related to the extraction of the skin, because you have no flesh and no marrow here,” he says, adding that the marks themselves compare well with other examples of skin extraction in the fossil record. . “These are clearly the movements you have to make to remove the bones from the fur.”

This indirect line of evidence suggests that Neanderthals used the fur for clothing, ritual reasons, or both. “The symbolic world starts with the Neanderthals,” says Moclán.

This discovery is not the only case of animal remains linked to Neanderthals. Researchers have discovered cuts that could be related to fur removal on everything from lynxes and lions to bears. But the majority of mammal remains associated with fur extraction come from herbivores more commonly used for food, such as red deer, horses and aurochs – the extinct ancestors of modern domesticated cows.

Although in most cases these cut marks are associated with meat extraction in herbivores, some cuts indicate that fur removal also occurred.

Read more: Neanderthals also had superior tool-making skills, not just humans

Neanderthals may have worn eagle claws as jewelry

Mammals aren’t the only animal remains from that period found with cut wounds. A number of birds from the Neanderthal period also show signs of having feathers or other inedible parts removed as well, raising the possibility that they were used for jewelry or other accessories.

For example, a fantastic set of eight eagle claws could have been strung together as chains in Croatia. This set was discovered more than a century ago at the Kaprina Neanderthal site and dates to approximately 130,000 years ago. They were then forgotten until researchers re-examined them at the Croatian Museum of Natural History.

The research team has found Cut marks on these claws consistent with a targeted takedown, publishing the results in PLOS One in 2015. In fact, the specimens were probably strung together like a kind of chain, the authors think.

“These remains clearly show that Krapina Neanderthals made jewelry long before the appearance of modern humans in Europe, and expanded ornamental production and symbolic activities early in the European Mousterian,” the authors wrote in the study. The European Mousterian is a tool-making tradition that in Europe is mainly associated with Neanderthals.

Another study of remains at a Neanderthal site in Spain found 80,000-year-old eagle claw bones that may have been used symbolically, based on cutting marks. Still, it is unclear whether these were bones associated with clothing, jewelry, or other accessories.

Read more: The fascinating world of Neanderthal diet, language and other behavior

New Neanderthal wires

All things considered, it’s possible that some Neanderthals used animal skins to keep warm, at least some of the time. Some of these clothes or accessories may also have been symbolic.

But whatever they wore before, there is evidence that a major change in style could have taken place then Homo sapiens brought new fashion to Europe about 42,000 years ago.

Currently, researchers are starting to find more accessories associated with Neanderthals. In Bulgaria, researchers have discovered what appears to be there pendants made from cave bear teeth about the time people arrived. These pendants also resemble others found in France and Spain linked to Neanderthals dating from 40,000 to 44,000 years ago. The implication is that both humans and Neanderthals may have shared some accessories.

It is difficult to say whether Neanderthals really used these objects as clothing. Neanderthals may have picked up pendants or other accessories from humans, but never wore them, for example. Their appearance at Neanderthal sites could also simply be a coincidence.

But during this period, humans and Neanderthals also interbred to some extent. So regardless of whether our evolutionary relatives wore clothes before this happened, humans carrying Neanderthal genes certainly started doing so. In fact, since modern humans probably own about 1 to 2 percent of it Neanderthal genes in their DNAToday, models with Neanderthal ancestry walk catwalks and attend fashion shows.

Read more: What exactly happened to the Neanderthals and why did they become extinct?

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Joshua Rapp Learn is an award-winning science writer from DC. As an expat Albertan, he contributes to a number of scientific publications such as National Geographic, The New York Times, The Guardian, New Scientist, Hakai and others.