What Did Homo Erectus Wear As Clothes?
Homo erectus, meaning upright man, is thought to have worn animal hides and furs taken from animals it hunted for meat. However, no fossilized remains have survived to fully support this theory.
Homo erectus lived throughout most of the Pleistocene between 2 million and 100,000 years ago. This ancient ancestor of modern humans inhabited Africa before migrating to Asia and Europe. It is thought by experts that early clothing would have been simple, consisting of large pieces of animal hide and fur draped over and around the body, but as the species evolved and migrated to colder climates, the clothing would have evolved too as homo erectus would have needed to keep warm. It is thought that leather would have been used and simple stitches devised to attach two fabrics together to create more substantial clothing.
A successful species, more advanced and mobile than previous species, homo erectus started out as gatherers but progressed to being successful hunters, hunting animals including rhinos, elephants and bison from which it would have gotten the hides and furs for clothing. Homo erectus could make fires for cooking and warmth and reasonably sophisticated tools from sharpened stone, bone, wood and antler, such as hand axes, stone-tipped spears, choppers, borers and scrapers.
