[HN Gopher] My Search for the Origins of Clothing
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My Search for the Origins of Clothing
Author : plimp
Score : 31 points
Date : 2023-04-24 17:27 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sapiens.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sapiens.org)
| tivert wrote:
| How credible is sapiens.com? After reading the OP, I found this
| article (https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/neanderthals-
| outlived-ho...), which I feel takes some pretty speculative
| claims as facts (on the psychology of an long exist species).
| antman wrote:
| The usual book suggested with many counterclaims which is less
| famous is "The Dawn of everything". A beautiful read and a lot
| clearer on what is research and what is opinion.
|
| Not for Harari or Pinker readers, see here:
| https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/23/the-dawn-of-
| ev...?
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| I have struggled greatly with that book, and finally set it
| down so that I could pick up some other books in my reading
| queue and enjoy reading again.
|
| I don't have detailed notes for what I've disliked about it.
| When I pick it up again, I'll start from the beginning and
| keep a log. But, broadly, the authors make a great deal of
| claims that are unsupported by their fields of study _and_
| they don 't consult with people from other fields of study.
| Also, at least up to the point that I had read it, the far
| East was entirely absent from any mention of human history,
| which seems like quite a grave oversight given the kind of
| book it set out to be.
|
| FWIW, a good friend of mine is a recently-degreed
| archaeologist, does cultural anthropological work, and I was
| able to reliably get her wound up with excerpts from the
| book.
|
| My impression is that the authors started out with some
| particular ideologies of their own, and sought to support
| those ideologies with evidence from their fields. ...which is
| fine, but it's not what I was expecting from it. The book is
| pronounced on places like HN as a must-read re-examination of
| human history, but framed in that way, it's not a very good
| book (IMO).
| havelhovel wrote:
| The author of that article is a professor of archaeology who
| seems to hedge their language throughout. What speculative
| claims are presented as fact?
| tivert wrote:
| > What speculative claims are presented as fact?
|
| Specifically these:
|
| > Neanderthals were more inclined to stay in their family
| groups and were warier of new people.
|
| In the absence of living Neanderthals to study or written
| records describing them, I don't see how what's stated there
| about their thoughts and mental attitudes could be known at
| all, let alone with such certainty.
|
| Archeological evidence might be able to say they _tended_
| stay in their family group, but it seems like a speculative
| leap to say they did so for particular subtle psychological
| reasons.
|
| > ...given that they were genetically disposed to being less
| friendly to those beyond their immediate family.
|
| I'm no expert on genetics, but I'm skeptical any kind of
| existing genetic analysis could give that kind of behavioral
| detail.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Origin of clothing is when someone felt cold
| stephen_g wrote:
| And that's the naked truth!
| rvbissell wrote:
| And looking in a grandparent's direction at precisely the wrong
| time
| rolph wrote:
| sunburn; walking through brush; insects
| er4hn wrote:
| Another interesting exploration of this is The Fabric of
| Civilization by Virginia Postrel (https://vpostrel.com/the-
| fabric-of-civilization). Her first chapter talks about how one of
| the overlooked innovations of the Stone Age was that twine needed
| to be created to actually secure the stone tool head to a wooden
| shaft.
|
| After that she discusses the enormous amounts of labor required
| to turn raw materials into threads and how the development of
| different tools was an important part of developing civilization.
| This book mostly talks about cloth, which is an entire other
| chapter owing to how that is its own step up in complexity from
| producing thread.
| elevation wrote:
| I haven't read Postrel, but the idea of twine being necessary
| to secure a stone tool to a wooden shaft seems wrong to me.
|
| Jon Plant secures a stone tool head to a shaft by building a
| stone axe called a "celt" with more primitive methods [0]. The
| friction fit he achieves is likely more robust than a twine
| lashing because it helps deliver a higher impulse to the work-
| piece than a mount made of cordage.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN-34JfUrHY
| tanseydavid wrote:
| https://www.madmagazine.com/blog/2015/11/20/don-martin-one-d...
| yarg wrote:
| When did we lose our fur? When did we start to track the herds?
|
| Being able to control your temperature (reasonably) independently
| of the seasons is a very useful adaptation in a migratory
| species.
| ignite wrote:
| An interesting question might be: "Do any other species wear
| clothing?"
|
| Hermit crabs and octopi come to mind. Do any other species make
| anything to wear?
|
| Taylor birds sew their nests, but not something to wear:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQMYpzbQIDA&t=53s
| jasonpeacock wrote:
| Orangutans and apes use large leaves and other materials as
| protective "clothing", e.g. to keep themselves dry in rain.
|
| But they don't make clothing, they repurpose found objects.
| [deleted]
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Then there are parasites, which might be said to be _wearing
| another entire animal_ for protection.
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