How do anthropologists know anything about the clothing of Stone Age people?

Question

--Since clothing does not leave a fossil record.

Answer 1

Heather is dead on correct...

not only have we found fully clothed cavemen, we've found fully intact froze bodies/hides, etc.

Answer 2

I honestly think they make all this up because they feel that they have the moral obligation to have people clothed.

Answer 3

There is a great deal of indirect evidence of clothing from the Paleolithic, (early stone age) including bone needles and pins, presumably used to stitch hides together for clothing and shelter.  Other evidence includes carvings from this time depicting clothed people.  Don't forget that the stone age also includes the Ice Age, so peoples living in Northern climates would either wear warm clothes or die from exposure.  Beads from articles of clothing are also found in burial excavations from this time period.

Actual textiles have been found from Neolithic times as well; the most famous of which is Otzi, the frozen man found in the German Alps.  He was discovered fully clothed.  Textiles impressions in burial sites from the Czech Republic are even older that Otzi, some 25 thousand years ago!

Archaeologists don't have to make up theories about whether Stone Age peoples wore clothing when there is more than enough evidence to show that they, in fact, did wear clothes, bury their dead, play musical instruments, made jewelry and had deep spiritual beliefs.  Stone Age life was not made up of knuckle dragging primitives.

Answer 4

Research

Answer 5

Hmm.  Seems some people are confused between "Stone Agepeople" and "Medieval people".

But, as has been suggested by other answers, it is by indirect reference.  If a stone needle is found, it is assumed that the people used it to sew clothing.  Cloth and clothes of many types have been preseved one way or another, but I have never heard of any dating back to the Stone Age.

Try this website:

http://history-world.org/stone_age.htm

As the Old Stone Age extends backwards to 2,000,000 years ago, there really is NOT much that is KNOWN DEFINITELY...except by indirect reference.

Answer 6

assumptions

Answer 7

The size of the needles tells how thick the material.

Answer 8

Besides Otzi the Iceman when anthropologists have found fossilized human remains sometimes they have found what are called print fossils where the clothing and hair have eroded away but left imprints in the sediment. Also in areas such as Scandinavia prehistoric humans would often drop their dead in peat bogs which would preserve the clothing and hair.