“The clothes make the man,” the old saying goes. And it seems it’s been true longer than previously thought.
German archeologists have discovered new evidence that cavemen were clothing themselves in animal pelts as far back as 300,000 years ago, according to a study published December 23 in the Journal of Human Evolution.
Because the organic materials that were used for early clothing – materials like fur and leather – generally can’t be preserved more than 100,000 years, actual evidence of what early man wore can be hard to find.
But cut marks discovered on the fossilized paw of an ancient cave bear in the northern German town of Schöningen have given researchers what’s believed to be the oldest evidence of prehistoric clothing aside from cave paintings.
Related
“The study is significant because we know relatively little about how humans in the deep past were protecting themselves from the elements. From this early time period, there is only a handful of sites that show evidence of bear skinning, with Schöningen providing the most complete picture,” Ivo Verheijen, the study’s author and a doctoral student at Germany’s Tübingen University, told CNN in an e-mail.
“We found the cutmarks on elements of the hands/feet where very little meat or fat is present on the bones, which argues against the cutmarks originating from the butchering of the animal,” Verheijen continued. “On the contrary, in these locations, the skin is much closer to the bones, which makes marking the bone inevitable when skinning an animal.”
Cave bears have been extinct for about 25,000 years but scientists know they were about the same size as a polar bear, and they had hides that were well-suited for use as clothing or bedding, according to the study.
The Schöningen site previously gave scientists the oldest known wooden weapons. Nine throwing spears, two throwing sticks and a thrusting lance used 300,000 years ago have been discovered at the site in the past.
Related
“We have discovered numerous remains of other animals with cutmarks in Schöningen such as horses and aurochs, with cutmarks related to skinning. Nonetheless, the highly insulating properties of bear skins, together with the fact that the hides are more flexible when treated properly, makes bear skins much more suitable for clothing than other large herbivores,” Verheijen said
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign up and follow Audacy
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram