When did humans start wearing clothess？

張沐沐

In popular culture，cave men（and women）are often draped in furs，but archaeological evidence of what our Stone Age ancestors actually wore and how they made clothes is thin.

Fur，leather and other organic materials generally aren’t preserved，especially beyond 100，000 years ago. However，researchers say 62 bone tools used to process and smooth animal skins found in a cave in Morocco may be some of the earliest proxy evidence for clothing in the archaeological record. The tools are between 90，000 and 120，000 years old.

“I wasn’t expecting to find them. I was studying this assemblage initially to look at the animal bones to reconstruct the human diet，”said Emily Yuko Hallett，a postdoctoral scientist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History’s PanAfrican Evolution Research Group.

“And when I was going through them there were around 12，000 animal bones—I started to notice these bones that had a very different shape. It wasn’t a natural shape. And they had sheen on them，and they were shiny，and they had striations（grooves or scratches）on them，”said Hallett，who was an author of a study on the findings that published Thursday in the journal iScience.

Unlike the bones discarded after consuming an animal for food，bones used regularly by human hands gain a sheen and polish.

She also found a pattern of cut marks on other bones in the cave that suggested the humans who lived there were removing the skins of carnivores such as sand foxes，golden jackals and wildcats，for their furs. The bones of cattle-like animals showed different markings，suggesting they were processed for meat.

“I’m most excited about the skinning marks on the carnivores，because I haven’t seen this pattern described before. And my hope is that archaeologists working in much older sites also start looking for this pattern，”she said.

It’s challenging to figure out when the use of clothing began. It’s highly likely early humans like Neanderthals that lived in cold climates long before Homo sapiens arrived on the scene had clothing to protect themselves from the extreme weather，but there’s not much hard evidence.

Genetic studies of lice indicate that clothing lice diverged from their human head louse ancestors at least 83，000 years ago and possibly as early as 170，000 years ago，which suggests humans were wearing clothes before major migrations out ofAfrica.

Hallett said that one of 98 400，000-year-old tools made from elephant bone and recently discovered in Italy may have been used to smooth leather. They were likely used by Neanderthals. Eyed needles emerge in the archaeological record much later，about 40，000 years ago.

The bone tools from Morocco that Hallett discovered were shaped a bit like a spatula and would have been used to remove connective tissue. Similar bone tools are still used by some leather workers today，Hallett said.

“The reason people like using these tools is that they don’t pierce the skin，and so you’re left with an intact skin，”she said.

The bone tools were found in Contrebandiers Cave on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. Hallett said the climate 120，000 years ago would have been mild，as it is now，raising the possibility that early clothes could have been for ornamentation as well as protection.

“There’s really no extreme temperatures or extreme climate conditions there in the past or today. So that makes me wonder was clothing strictly utilitarian or was it symbolic or was it a little bit of both？”

在現(xiàn)代人的認(rèn)知里，穴居人通常披著毛皮，但石器時(shí)代我們的祖先究竟穿什么，關(guān)于這方面的考古證據(jù)并不多。

10萬年前的毛皮、皮革和其他有機(jī)材料通常無法保存下來。然而，研究人員稱，在摩洛哥的一個(gè)洞穴中發(fā)現(xiàn)了62件用于處理和打磨動(dòng)物皮革的骨器，這可能是考古發(fā)現(xiàn)中的最早關(guān)于人類著裝的指向性證據(jù)之一。這些工具距今有9萬至12萬年的歷史。

馬克斯·普朗克人類歷史科學(xué)研究所泛非進(jìn)化研究小組的博士后科學(xué)家艾米莉·尤科·哈利特稱：“我沒想到會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)這些骨器。我研究這堆化石最初是為了觀察動(dòng)物骨骼，以重現(xiàn)人類的飲食。”

研究作者之一哈利特說：“當(dāng)我檢查這12000多塊動(dòng)物骨頭時(shí)，我開始注意到這些骨頭的形狀非常不同。這不是自然的形狀。它們很光滑，有光澤，表面有微小的擦痕。”9月16日，《iScience》雜志發(fā)表了這些研究結(jié)果。

與食用動(dòng)物后丟棄的骨頭不同，人手經(jīng)常使用的骨頭表面光滑、有光澤。

哈利特還在洞穴中的其他骨骼上發(fā)現(xiàn)了一種切割痕跡，這表明居住在那里的人類會(huì)剝掉沙狐、金豺和野貓等食肉動(dòng)物的皮毛。牛骨等動(dòng)物骨頭則顯示出不同的痕跡，表明它們是加工取肉的來源。

哈利特說：“食肉動(dòng)物身上的剝皮痕跡讓我很興奮，因?yàn)榇饲拔覐奈匆娺^這種痕跡。我希望在更古老的遺址工作的考古學(xué)家也開始尋找這樣的痕跡。”

我們很難弄清楚人類究竟是從什么時(shí)候開始穿衣服的。很可能在智人出現(xiàn)之前，像尼安德特人這樣生活在寒冷環(huán)境的早期人類就已經(jīng)開始穿衣御寒了，但是沒有確鑿證據(jù)。

對虱子的基因研究表明，從頭虱分化出來的衣虱至少在83000年前就出現(xiàn)了，也可能早在17萬年前就存在，這表明人類在大規(guī)模遷出非洲之前就已經(jīng)穿上了衣服。

哈利特說，最近在意大利發(fā)現(xiàn)的98件40萬年前用大象骨頭制成的工具中，有一種可能是用來打磨皮革的，很可能是尼安德特人使用的。縫紉針出現(xiàn)在考古記錄中的時(shí)間要晚得多，距今約4萬年前。

哈利特在摩洛哥發(fā)現(xiàn)的骨器形狀有點(diǎn)像刮刀，可以用來去除結(jié)締組織。哈利特說，今天一些皮匠仍在使用類似的骨制品。

她說：“人們喜歡使用這些工具的原因是它們不會(huì)刺傷皮面，這樣能獲得一塊完好無損的皮革。”

這些骨器在摩洛哥大西洋海岸的孔特雷班迪爾斯洞穴中發(fā)現(xiàn)。哈利特說，12萬年前這里的氣候應(yīng)該很溫和，就像現(xiàn)在一樣，因此很可能早期的衣物是用于裝飾和防護(hù)的。

“在過去或今天，那里真的不存在極端溫度或極端天氣。因此，我很好奇，衣物是完全實(shí)用性的，還是象征性的裝飾，或是兩者兼而有之呢？”