Body lice may—or may not—date our first clothes
Every human society wears something, yet when we started is surprisingly contested. Archaeologists found possible garments 120,000 years ago in Morocco while louse genetics once suggested 40,000 to 170,000 years—though newer research says head and body lice are nearly identical.
Clothing consists of items worn on the body, usually from textiles but also from skins, furs, and synthetics. It protects against weather and hazards, regulates temperature, and signals status, gender, religion, and taste. Humans likely began covering themselves tens of thousands of years ago, first with animal skins and plant fibres before woven cloth spread widely.
Dating origins is messy. Estimates range from 40,000 to millions of years, and a 2003 louse study pointed to clothing at least 100,000 years ago because body lice need fabric to survive. Divergence from head lice was estimated between 40,000 and 170,000 years before present. Recent transcriptome work, however, casts doubt on lice as a clock: body and head lice are almost genetically identical, with phenotypic differences likely driven by regulatory or epigenetic responses to environment.
Direct archaeology offers firmer anchors. In 2021, scientists reported 120,000-year-old clothing evidence from Moroccan deposits. Needles of bone and ivory near Kostenki, Russia, date to about 30,000 BC; a Denisovan needle from Siberia may exceed 50,000 years. Dyed flax fibres from 34,000 BC appear in a Georgian cave. The oldest known woven garment is the over-five-thousand-year-old linen Tarkhan dress.
Making cloth by hand was laborious until the powered loom mechanized textiles in the Industrial Revolution. Cultures draped uncut rectangles—dhoti, sari, kilt—or cut and sewed to measure. Thermophysiological comfort depends on fibre choice: natural fibres breathe and absorb moisture while synthetics repel it. Skin surface thermal comfort sits around 28 to 30 degrees Celsius; clothing helps maintain that balance while managing moisture, pressure, and social meaning.
Source: Clothing
