The Invention Of The Eyed Needle About 40,000 Years Ago Marked The Transition Of Clothing From Function To Fashion And Gave Us More Fitted Garments, Like Underwear
Our clothing style is a form of expression, a way to reflect our identities. But this wasn’t always the case. Back in ancient times, clothes were merely used as protection from the weather.
After studying ancient tools, researchers believe they have pinpointed when clothing started being worn for fashion purposes.
A team of researchers looked at archaeological evidence from multiple sites across Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Middle East, where ancient tools used for making clothes have been discovered. Their examination raised a number of questions about eyed needles.
“Eyed needle tools are an important development in prehistory because they document a transition in the function of clothing from utilitarian to social purposes,” said Dr. Ian Gilligan, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney.
Before the development of eyed needles, humans had been creating clothing with bone awls since at least 70,000 years ago. The earliest known eyed needles appeared about 40,000 years ago and were found in a cave in Siberia.
Eyed needles allowed for more efficiency and precision to create tailored garments with adornments.
However, they were much more difficult to make than bone awls. Bone awls were crafted by sharpening animal bones to a point. Eyed needles are made similarly but with the added feature of a perforated hole to pull the thread through.
The invention of eyed needles suggests that more complex clothing was being created. Beads, shells, or other small ornamental objects were attached to the garments. But why did clothing become an item of decoration?
According to Dr. Gilligan and his team, the last ice age made traditional body decoration practices impossible, as people needed to bundle up in order to survive.
Damian – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only
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Previously, humans tended to cover their bodies with red ocher, tattoos, and deliberate scarring as an expression of their identities and social groups. Clothing would have rendered these body modifications invisible.
Eyed needles allowed humans to communicate through fashion instead of body art. They were able to do the fine sewing that was required to adorn clothing. Their appearance represents the shift from clothing as a practical necessity to a social and cultural expression of identity.
Eyed needles were not just used for decorative purposes. They also could have been used to create more fitted garments and layers like underwear.
“These two different purposes actually coincide, since the thermal need for underwear corresponds to a more complete and continuous use of clothing, which in turn, would favor a shift from decorating the skin surface to adorning the more visible surface of clothes,” wrote the researchers.
Because of the regular wearing of clothes, larger societies were able to form. People could move to colder environments while still conveying their association with their communities based on the style and symbols of their clothing.
Even today, the practice of wearing clothes for fashion persists.
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