Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of clothing

A team of researchers led by an archaeologist at the University of Sydney are the first to suggest that eyed pins were a new technological innovation used to embellish clothing for social and cultural purposes, marking the major shift from protective clothing to clothing. as an expression of identity.

“Eyed needle tools are an important development in prehistory because they document a shift in the function of clothing from utilitarian to social purposes,” says Dr. Ian Gilligan, Honorary Fellow in Archeology at the University of Sydney.

From stone tools that prepared animal skins for people to use as thermal insulation, to the emergence of bone needles and eyed needles to create tailored and embellished clothing, why we began to dress for expression and to impress others?

Dr. Gilligan and his co-authors reinterpret evidence from recent discoveries in clothing development in their new Advances in science paper, “Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of clothing”.

“Why do we wear clothes? We assume it’s part of being human, but when you look at different cultures, you realize that people existed and functioned perfectly in society without clothes,” says Dr. Gilligan. “What intrigues me is the transition of clothing from a physical necessity in certain environments to a social necessity in all environments.”

The earliest known eyed needles appeared approximately 40,000 years ago in Siberia. One of the most iconic Paleolithic artefacts from the Stone Age, eyed needles are more difficult to make when compared to bone awls, which were enough to create suitable clothing. Bone awls are tools made from animal bones that are sharpened to a point. Eyed needles are modified bone awls, with a hole (eye) drilled to facilitate sewing thread or thread.

While evidence suggests that bone awls were already used to create tailored clothing, the innovation of eyed needles may reflect the production of more complex, layered clothing, as well as the embellishment of clothing by attaching beads and other small decorative items onto clothing.

“We know that clothing until the last glacial cycle was only used on an ad hoc basis. The classic tools we associate it with are skin scrapers or stone scrapers, and we find them appearing and disappearing during phases of of the last ice age,” explains Dr. Gilligan.

Dr. Gilligan and his co-authors argue that clothing became an item of decoration because traditional methods of body decoration, such as painting the body with ocher or deliberate scratching, were not possible during the latter part of the last Ice Age in the most Eurasian cold. since people needed to wear clothes all the time to survive.

“This is why the appearance of eyed needles is particularly important because it signals the use of clothing as decoration,” says Dr. Gilligan. “Eyed needles would be particularly useful for the very fine stitching required to decorate garments.”

Therefore, clothing developed to serve not only a practical necessity for protection and comfort against the elements, but also a social, aesthetic function for individual and cultural identity.

The regular wearing of clothing allowed larger and more complex societies to form, as people could move to colder climates while also cooperating with their tribe or community based on shared clothing styles and symbols. The skills associated with clothing production contributed to a more sustainable way of life and enhanced the long-term survival and prosperity of human communities.

Covering the human body regardless of the climate is a social practice that has endured. The future work of Dr. Gilligan goes beyond the advent of clothing as clothing and looks at the psychological functions and effects of wearing clothes.

“We take it for granted that we feel comfortable wearing clothes and we don’t feel comfortable not wearing clothes in public. But how does wearing clothes affect the way we look at ourselves, the way we see ourselves as people and perhaps how do we look at the environment around us?”