The Beginning of Fashion: Paleolithic Eye Needles and the Evolution of Clothing

A team of researchers led by an archaeologist from the University of Sydney is the first to suggest that eye needles are a new technological innovation used to decorate clothing for social and cultural purposes. This marks the major shift from clothing for protection to clothing as an expression of identity.

“Eye 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, Honorary Fellow in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Sydney.

From stone tools that prepared animal hides for humans to use as thermal insulation, to the advent of bone picks and eyed needles to create fitted and decorated garments, why did we begin to dress to express ourselves and impress others?

Dr. Gilligan and his co-authors reinterpret evidence from recent discoveries in clothing development in their novel Scientific progress paper, “Paleolithic Eye Needles and the Evolution of Clothing.”

“Why do we wear clothes? We assume it’s a part of being human, but when you look across cultures, you realize that people have been able to function perfectly well in society without clothing,” says Dr. Gilligan. “What intrigues me is the transition of clothing from a physical necessity in certain environments to a social necessity in all environments.”

The earliest known eye needles appeared in Siberia about 40,000 years ago. Eye needles are one of the most iconic Paleolithic artifacts from the Stone Age. They are more difficult to make than bone awls, which were sufficient for making suitable clothing. Bone awls are tools made from animal bones that have been sharpened to a point. Eye needles are modified awls of bone, with a perforated hole (eye) to facilitate sewing tendons or thread.

Evidence shows that bone awls were already used to make tailored clothing. The invention of eye needles may indicate the production of more complex, layered clothing, but also the decoration of clothing by attaching beads and other small decorative objects to garments.

‘We know that clothing was only used on an ad hoc basis until the last ice cycle. The classic tools we associate with them are skin scrapers or stone scrapers, and we see them appearing and disappearing during the different phases of the last ice age. ice ages,” explains Dr. Gilligan out.

Dr. Gilligan and his co-authors argue that clothing became a decorative item because traditional methods of body decoration, such as body painting with ochre or deliberate scarring, were not possible during the latter part of the last ice age in colder parts of Eurasia. People then had to wear clothing all the time to survive.

“That’s why the appearance of eyed needles is so important, because it indicates the use of clothing as decoration,” says Dr. Gilligan. “Eyed needles were especially useful for the very fine sewing required to decorate clothing.”

Clothing therefore evolved not only to serve a practical necessity for protection and comfort from external elements, but also to fulfill a social, aesthetic function for individual and cultural identity.

The regular wearing of clothing made it possible to form larger and more complex societies, as people could move to colder climates while simultaneously cooperating with their tribe or community based on shared clothing styles and symbols. The skills associated with clothing production contributed to a more sustainable lifestyle and improved the long-term survival and prosperity of human communities.

Covering the human body, regardless of climate, is a social practice that has endured. Dr. Gilligan’s future work will go beyond the advent of clothes as clothing and look at the psychological functions and effects of wearing clothes.

“We assume that we feel comfortable wearing clothes and uncomfortable not wearing clothes in public. But how does wearing clothes affect the way we see ourselves, the way we see ourselves as people, and perhaps the way we see the environment around us?”