Clothes are what most visibly set humans apart from all other species. In fact no other technology plays such an intimate part in the everyday lives of modern humans.

Clothing. Ian Gilligan. In T.K. Shackelford, V.A. Weekes-Shackelford (eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3009-1

Clothes are what most visibly set humans apart from all other species. In fact no other technology plays such an intimate part in the everyday lives of modern humans. Yet of all our major inventions, the least is known about the origin of clothes. One reason is that clothes do not survive for long in the archaeological record. Another factor contributingto an academic neglect is a gender bias: Clothes are generally considered more a feminine concern.

Clothing originated as an adaptive behavioral response to biological nakedness which became a thermal liability during the Pleistocene ice ages. Findings from climatology and thermal physiologycan reveal the prehistoric need for clothes as insulation from cold. While no garments have survived, archaeology yields evidence for clothing-related technologies in the paleolithic era (especially tailored clothes). The invention and improvement of clothes as protection from worsening weather conditions led to major technological innovations – toolkits with stone scrapers, blades, and bone needles. These technologies allowed hominins to conquer most of the world’s environments and to finally enter the Americas from Siberia. Clothing was the most advanced technology developed by hominins in prehistory – and it is the only paleolithic invention that people still carry with them in the contemporary world.