Bone Discovery Suggests Humans Were Already Manufacturing Clothes 120,000 Years Agohttps://t.co/HAIURNkU9c
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Pinpointing when humans started wearing clothes is tricky, as leather, fur, and textiles tend to rot completely away. However, we can find hints in the tools people used to make clothing. A team headed by Emily Hallett of the Max Planck Institute has been excavating a cave in Morocco that has yielded some 12,000 bone fragments. Some of those bones, dated to around 120,000 years ago, have markings that match newer bones from other sites that were used to skin animals for fur and leather. In addition to these bone tools, other animal bones suggest that the people who lived there ate herbivores and just skinned carnivores.
"In this cave there are three species of carnivores with skinning marks on their bones: Rüppell's fox, golden jackal, and wildcat," Hallett told ScienceAlert.
"The cut marks on these carnivore bones are restricted to areas where incisions are made for fur removal, and there are no cut marks on the areas of the skeleton associated with meat removal."
While for leather, several species of bovid were found at the site.
"Hartebeest, aurochs, and gazelle bones were found in high abundance in the cave, and these animals were also consumed by humans, because there are cut marks associated with meat removal on their bones," added Hallett.
These are the oldest leather working tools yet found. However, genetic studies in lice suggest that head lice and clothing lice diverged around 170,000 years ago, which may mean there are even earlier leather working tools to be found somewhere. Read about the discovery at ScienceAlert. -via Strange Company