Clothing the Caveman: Recent Insights in Middle Palaeolithic Clothing

Phoebe Baker, University of York
Abstract: The study of early clothing is invaluable in populating and enriching our understanding of how past peoples looked, behaved and interacted with their surroundings. Interest in whether Neanderthals required clothing has grown substantially within the past two decades. Unfortunately, the breakdown of the perishable, organic materials associated with clothing have meant that no direct examples of Middle Palaeolithic clothing currently exist, resulting in difficulties in accurately assessing whether clothing was used or what it might have looked like. This talk will outline and review the current debate within the area, highlighting particularly how the increasing resolution in environmental, biological and physiological modelling can be coupled with the growing wealth of archaeological evidence to begin to move towards a more nuanced picture for Middle Palaeolithic clothing.

Hosted by Harry Hall, PhD student at the University of Liverpool