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165 Shelter and Clothing
Key Idea: The development of clothing and techniques to build shelters allowed the expansion of humans into colder climatic areas. Human ancestors would have had a far greater amount of body hair than humans today. The move into hot open grassland provided a selection pressure for the reduction of body hair. However this then limited the ability to survive in cold climates as humanity migrated north out of Africa into Europe and beyond. The use of animal skins or woven plant material to make clothing provided a way of keeping warm. Building shelters allowed humans to shelter from both the weather and possible predators.
1. (a) Identify the evidence for humans building purpose built shelters:
(c) Suggest a reason why there is so little evidence of humans building shelters or making clothes:
2. Suggest a reason why caves where probably not regularly used by humans and their ancestors until the controlled use of fire was developed:
3. What is the main purpose of clothing?
Early humans and their ancestors are often depicted in popular texts wearing animal skins. However there is little direct evidence of humans wearing clothes until 26,000 years ago (the evidence is a finely worked bone needle). Evidence from burial sites also shows humans were adorning themselves (or at least their dead) with necklaces as far back as 35,000 years ago. The divergence of head lice and body lice (which live in clothes) suggests human ancestors began wearing clothes some 100,000 years ago.
This finely worked bone needle is almost identical in shape to needles used today. This needle is dated between 17,000 and 10,000 years old.
Hide drying on rack
Although often called cavemen, human ancestors probably didn't start using caves regularly as shelter until they could control the use of fire. Bones of early australopithecines or Homo found in caves were likely taken there by predators or been washed in by ancient streams. Some of the first evidence of caves being used by humans is from the Atapuerca cave in Spain. It is dated at 1.2 million years old, but it is difficult to tell the exact relationship of the fossils to the cave.
Liang Bua cave, Flores Island, Indonesia.
Rosino 3D
The first evidence of humans building purpose-built shelters dates to around 400,000 years ago. Post holes in the ground indicate poles were used as scaffolding for the shelter. Preserved bones from around 17,000 years ago in the Ukraine show humans there used mammoth bones and tusks as scaffolding, probably because there would have been few trees available to make wood scaffolding from.
