History of Clothing

There is no information about when we started using clothes. However, Anthropologists think that animal skins and vegetation were adapted as protection from weather conditions in ancient times. There is the other idea that clothing may have been invented first for the purposes, such as magic, decoration, cult or prestige, and later-on found as means of protection. There are various archeological findings by wan of representation of clothing in art which can help to determine when particular clothing appeared in history.

During the Stone Age, textiles appeared in the Middle East. There is also evidence that humans may have begun wearing clothing somewhere from 100,000 to 500,000 years ago. Primitive sewing needles have been found which dated back to around 40,000 years ago. Dyed flax fibers which have been found in a prehistoric cave in the Republic of Georgia are old some 36,000 years. Some 25,000 years ago the Venus figurines started appearing in Europe, that were depicted with clothing having also basket hats or caps, belts at the waist and a strap of cloth above the breast.

First material used for clothing that was not leather. Nålebinding, which is another early textile method - a type of precursor of knitting, appeared somewhere in 6500 BC as some evidence tells. At a Neolithic site at Çatalhöyük in Anatolia were found oldest known woven textiles of the Near East. They were used for wrapping the dead. Flax was cultivated from c. 8000 BC in the Near East but sheep are bred much later in 3000BC. Cotton was used for clothing in Ancient India from 5th millennium BC. Linen cloth was made in Ancient Egypt from the Neolithic period. Flax was grown even earlier. Ancient Egypt also knew about different spinning techniques like the drop spindle, hand-to-hand spinning, and rolling on the thigh as well as about horizontal ground loom and vertical two-beam loom which came from Asia.

The earliest proof of silk production in China dates from between 5000 and 3000 BC and is in the form of cocoon of the domesticated silkworm which was cut in half by a sharp knife. Japan started with weaving in Jōmon period which lasted from 12,000 BC to 300BC. There is evidence of pottery figurines that were depicted with clothing and a piece of cloth made from bark fibers dating from 5500BC. Some primitive needles were also found as well as hemp fibers and pattern imprints on pottery which proves existence of weaving techniques in Japan at that time. Silk Road was very important for exchange of luxury textiles between East and West. It helped in the development of the great civilizations of China, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, the Indian subcontinent and Rome that traded along the route.