What were the clothes of primitive people? Did they wear anything other than mammoth skins? Did the ancient people sew or not? Anyway, how do we know what people dressed in in ancient times?

If with the appearance of clothes (and clothes appeared about 107 thousand years ago) biologists who studied DNA and lice helped to determine more or less accurately, then with what the clothes of primitive people looked like, not everything is so simple.

How to find clothes of ancient people?

And the main problem is that neither tissues, nor skins, nor leaves of plants are stored for a long time, they decompose very quickly. Thus, during excavations, archaeologists can find pottery, tools made of stone or iron, the bones of primitive people themselves, their adornments, but just not clothes.



In this case, there are several ways to understand how the ancient people dressed. Firstly, these are drawings - drawings on rocks, in caves. Drawings depicting hunters, and, accordingly, their clothes. But even here there is one difficulty, primitive people drew animals very realistically, while people in the drawings can be seen very rarely and most often they will be drawn very schematically.



Another option is analogy. There are still people on Earth who live as if time had frozen for them and they still have a Stone, Bronze or Iron Age. For example, these are the tribes of Africa or Australia. Before the Europeans discovered America, the Indians also lived as primitive people.

And, accordingly, studying the traditions and clothing of the tribes of Africa, Australia, a number of islands in the Pacific Ocean, the American Indians, the peoples of Siberia, it can be assumed that the ancient people had traditions that were somewhat similar to them and dressed in almost the same way.

So what kind of clothes did primitive people wear?

Of course, mammoth skins. But not only mammoths, they generally wore animal skins. Such skins served as a kind of raincoats, protecting from the cold.



So, almost all the peoples of Siberia who lived in the polar zone, traditional clothes were worn over the head and were made exclusively of fur. But among the peoples who lived in the taiga zone, the clothes were already swinging, that is, with a slit in the front. Moreover, in addition to fur, they could use tanned leather and fabrics.



For example, suede (thin and soft with a velvety surface of elk or deerskin), as was the case with some tribes of the Indians of North America. The Indians of the forest belt of North America sewed long shirts that were worn by both men and women. Men also wore leggings - something like shoes without feet or peculiar stockings. Legs covered part of the leg from knee to foot, usually made of wool.



The first people learned to weave fabrics in the Neolithic period - the new Stone Age. The time of the Neolithic in Europe is from about 7 thousand years BC. NS. until the 18th century BC NS. The appearance of fabrics was associated with the transition of people to a sedentary lifestyle and agriculture.

The first fabrics were woolen and from plant fibers. The basis for woolen fabrics was the wool of domestic animals, plant fabrics were woven from the fibers of such plants as flax, cotton, hemp.



If in the North people had to warm themselves, then in the South people in ancient times, and even today some African tribes, wore a minimum of clothing. It was most often a loincloth, it could be woven simply from plant leaves, and sometimes a coverlet over the shoulders.

Shoes were also known to primitive people. It could be wicker shoes made of plants. From straw, for example.Or just shoes in the form of a piece of animal skin wrapped around the leg.



Headdresses were worn by primitive people not only as protection from the cold, but also as a symbol of social status. The most intricate headdresses were worn by the chiefs or priests of the tribe.

The story of Ötzi, a man who froze to death in the Alps 3,300 BC.

Archaeologists almost never manage to find the clothes of primitive people, most often they only find jewelry. For example, on the territory of the Vladimir region of the Russian Federation, archaeologists have found the burials of children from the Paleolithic period. The children's clothes, of course, were not preserved, but the beads made of mammoth bones, with which these clothes were sheathed, were found safe and sound.



But sometimes archaeologists are lucky. So, in 1991, an ice mummy was found in the Alps of a man who was unlucky and he was 3 300 years BC. frozen in the mountains. Historians gave this person the name Etzi. His clothes were also frozen. Thus, scientists were able to restore the clothes worn by people 3300 BC.



Ötzi wore a straw cloak, waistcoat, loincloth, leggings and leather shoes... Bast was used as laces on the boots. And as socks - soft grass, which was tied around the feet. He also wore a bearskin hat, which was held on his head with a leather chin cord.

The vest, loincloth, leggings, shoes were sewn from strips of leather, and tendons were used as threads.

Also, there were about 57 tattoos on Ötzi's body, drawn with crosses, lines and dots.