Rare evidence of ancient people wearing clothing and their style has been discovered by scientists: Humans dressed in the skins and furs of predatory creatures such as sand foxes, golden jackals, and wildcats between 90,000 and 120,000 years ago, according to a study published Thursday in the journal iScience.
The authors of the study were able to deduce ancient fashion trends based on 62 bone tools discovered in a Moroccan cave, some of which appear to have been used to create clothing rather than for food.
"I wasn't expecting to find them. I was studying this assemblage initially to look at the animal bones to reconstruct the human diet," lead author and postdoctoral scientist Emily Yuko Hallett told CNN.
"And when I was going through them - there were around 12,000 animal bones - I started to notice these bones that had a very different shape. It wasn't a natural shape. And they had sheen on them, and they were shiny, and they had striations (grooves or scratches) on them."
The animal bones that cavemen and women tossed aside after eating the creature, as well as the bones they used as tools, are different, according to Hallett, because the tools have a gloss to them and are spatula-shaped.
The remains of sand foxes, golden jackals, and wildcats plainly displayed marks similar to those left over during skinning. At each of the animal's four paws, incisions were made to remove the skin so that it could be pulled in one piece to the animal's head.
Cutting around the lips was used to remove skin from the head, as demonstrated by ancient cut marks. There are no signs of butchery on these carnivorous species, merely the cuts required to remove skin.
Other animals, such as bovids (ancient cows), show clear traces of being processed to generate meat for the Pleistocene dinner table.
According to the evidence, North African cave dwellers were making and wearing clothing long before the great human migrations that all non-Africans may trace their ancestors to.
It appears that when Homo sapiens left Africa to inhabit the rest of the world, they did so clad in a variety of animal skins and furs.
