the evolution of clothes?

I'm going to suggest a couple of other influences that seem likely in the development of clothing.-Status. Male primate status displays often involve the gentials. By controlling status displays by artificial decorations the amount of physical confrontation would be reduced. Less time and effort spent in confrontation, more time spent getting ahead as a group.-Sex. Two things to consider. Humans don't have estrus, and our lack of sexual dimorphism indicates monogamy was practiced rather early on by our ancestors. Some sort of method of signalling sexual availability would have been neccessary.-Ritual. In recent primitive societies that live in climates that don't require clothes body paint is popular. What muddies the waters here is that these peoples may have settled where they are after clothing was adopted, so the body paint could be a "rememberance" of the clothing that their ancestors wore.. shed because of climate.-DHuman nature. The human desire to decorate stuff. The human desire to have stuff. The human drive to screw around with things.Given that the technology was in place by 1.6 MYA (working hides, A robustus), and that the concept of shelter was in place at least by the time that human ancestors left Africa (2 MYA, H erectus) it doesn't seem a big stretch for human ancestors to go from incipient clothing to "man-portable" shelter. The "when" is the key. I hazard that a form of clothing/incipient clothing existed before human ancestors moved into less hospitable climes and was adapted to those areas.No matter what, clothing had to be in use before 300 KYA, when humans of some type (archaic sapiens or H erectus) moved into Siberia. You just ain't going there without warm socks.

Absolom: Taphonomy of tools at Swartkrans. Admittedly there is also a possibility that it was H erectus as there is no absolute association between the A robustus remains and the tools. By about 1 MYA you have a number of H erectus evidences. As windbreaks and shelters far predate either of these, the earliest hide working may have been for that purpose.I don't see anything in your link (very interesting, BTW) that claims to be the earliest evidence of hide working.

Absolom:
"What I guess I am asking you for is proof of some sort that clothing, or even scraped hide shelters, existed at such an early date as 1.6 billion BP as you stated in your previous post. I find that a startling claim in that no evidence seems to exist to support clothing by species other than Neanderthals and CroMagnons."Nowhere did I say "Billion".. that's "Million", BTW.I said evidence of hide working, not evidence of clothing. Hides might have been roughly worked for a variety of reasons. I'm going by the Bob Brain's work at Swartkrans. I don't know of any other residue analyss, so I'm going by taphonomy (study of wear patterns on tools). Is there any reason that you have for rejecting taphonomy?I'm not sure that the first clothing would have been of hides. Twisted grasses may hve been used as rope and string, so grasses may have been used as clothing. The FLK site at Olduvai (associated with H habilis) shows a the remains of a windbreak and possibly a fence. About 1.6 MYA. So "shelter" was a familiar concept.Anyways, I would hazard that hominids had clothes before they left Africa.. they were colonizing areas that were less than inviting to the naked, and they did so rapidly. Granted that they already had controlled fire by then, but you can't carry a compfire with you. So that puts clothing firmly with H erectus at 2 MYA, perhaps earlier.Speaking of habilis, s/he carried stuff around with him/her. Perhaps hide bags? A lot of what we find with erectus is foreshadowed in habilis.

Absolom:
-"We need scrapers to prove hides were scraped. Wooden scrapers 1.6 million years old will be hard to come by. Bone scrapers may be extremely rare as well. But stone scrapers would survive."Actually, the Swartkrans tools are bone.-"And hides used for shelters and bags could be draped, poncho style, over the body as rudimentary "clothing."Which is still clothing, no matter how rudimentary. After all, this is a discussion of the "evolution" of clothing. Discussing the evolution of, say, horses, doesn't start with the Darley Arabian, either.-"Bone needles and awls seem only to be found in association with Neanderthal and CroMagnon"Actually, there *are* awls associated with H erectus, at Zhoukoudian, 460 KYA.-"so I find it hard to accept anything other than rudimentary cloaks, loin cloths, and maybe headdresses prior to Neanderthal."
As noted, the discussion doesn't have to be confined to sewn and tailored clothing.-"I reject the theory that hominids absolutely require clothing for migration and habitation outside Africa. There is nothing to support such a theory other than the fact that we contemporaries cannot conceive of living naked in other than temperate regions, while many of us keep domestic stock and chain dogs outside in extremely frigid weather."
In Siberia? You may have noticed that they don't have any native short-haired animals up there, never mind a naked ape. And dogs regularly freeze to death because owners think that they are winter-proof."A lot can evolve in 1.6 million years, I think; and we're transfering our own unsubstantiated concepts of necessity on an extinct species when we suppose they absolutely required clothing to survive "outside Africa."Well, I didn't say that it was absolutely a neccessity, but the speed with which less than pleasant environments were colonized indicates that we had the appropriate technologies to live there. By 1.3 MYA there were H erectus north of 40 degrees in China. The climate then had cold, dry spells.Given that by late H erectus (350 KYA) had structures, fire, art, spatial organization, language, ritual, ocean travel, etc, why is clothing so much of a stretch?

Abshalom: "In the last sentence of Your Post #43, you indicate that Homo Erectus engaged in "ocean travel" 350KYA. Do you mean by means other than accidental mobilization via flotsom? Are you saying there is evidence of watercraft 350K BP? Or are you claiming OCEANIC (as opposed to trans-gulf, trans-estuarian, or trans-ice sheet or ice berg-hopping) travel?"840 KYA, colonization of Flores. Three deep water crossings, the narrowest 19 km wide, and those are the ideal conditions. We don't know if the sea level was that low when the crossing was made. Those were probably the ancestors of H floriensis.And are you claiming that berg hopping and ice sheet travel would be possible without clothing? Shoes and warm socks would be a minimum requirement.

Abshalom: Flores island, Indonesia... the place where they recently dug up the new "hobbit" hominids, H floriensis. Oldawan tools definitely dated to 840 KYA.It's pretty certain that by late erctus we had clothes, it would be odd if we didn't, given everything else that we had.http://home.entouch.net/dmd/chron.htm is a rough overview of the history of human technology. It needs updating and not everything is unchallenged, but it'll give you an idea of how far back some of this stuff goes.

Abshalom:"The stone tools to which you and the above noted article refer are dated 840K BP using fission-track dating of volcanic rock within which the tools are said to have been encased."Uh, they were dated with stratigraphy, paleomagnetism, and fission track dating as well. All are in agreement. And there is more than one site.

quote:

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Originally posted by Abshalom:

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I'm lazy, given to typos, and thoroughly spoiled by frequenting boards that provide my html-challenged butt with buttons to perform those functions. However, I will strive to use quote blocks and hyperlinks in future. I'm actually computer literate, I have just never bothered with *tml.

Abshalom: On the dating and other information about H erectus fossils on Flores
Higher Education Support | McGraw Hill Higher Education"Even when the level fell to its lowest level, 19 kilometers of open water separated the eastern islands from the continental area of southeast Asia. Alfred Russell Wallace, ... noted that animal and plant life differed significantly between islands to the east and to the west of this deep water area, often referred to as Wallace's line....Archaeologists working on the island of Flores, located east of Wallace's line, have recently obtained accurate radiometric dating of archaeologist material...The strata that contain these artifacts have been dated by biostratigraphy, paleomagnetism, and, most recently by fission-track dating. The latter method provided a date of 880,000 70,000 B.P. This date is consistent with the dates given by the other techniques."Physical Anthropology Update, Fall 1998. Philip L. Stein & Bruce M. RoweLate erectus, sheleters and ritual activity, symbolic shared meaning, spatial organization at Bilzingsleben:
http://www2.uni-jena.de/philosophie/bilzingsleben/texte.htm"Camp site with dwelling structures, hearths, workshops and several activity zones as well as a paved area of a 9 m - diameter (Mania 1993 a). ... According to morphological and metrical studies (E. Vlcek 1978, 1980, 1987, 1999, Mania et al. 1994) - advanced Homo erectus. ... ca. 5 000 pebble tools (Mania 1986), some hundreds of bone tools (Mania 1986, Mania und Mania 1997), artefacts of antler and also of wood. Some bone artefacts with deliberate engravings (Mania and Mania 1988)"Late erectus or archaic sapiens: Religion 300-500 KYA
Figures from Berekhet Ram and Tan Tan
The Tan-Tan Venus"Berekhat Ram figurine, ...is a basaltic tuff pebble containing scoria clasts. It has a natural form suggestive of the head, torso, and arms of a female human and bears grooves implying that the iconic properties of the object were emphasized artificially. The argument that the Berekhat Ram pebble is a single representative of a category, thus calling its status as a figurine into question has been raised by various writers. The discovery of a second specimen is therefore of considerable significance, because it immediately reduces this concern. Not only is the second specimen presented here of very broadly the same age and certainly the same cultural provenience but its morphological similarities are such that it could easily have been modified by the same artist with similar tools. Yet it was found 4,700 km distant, in southern Morocco. The Berekhat Ram figurine was modified by precisely the same treatment as the one from Tan-Tan, the creation or emphasis of "horizontal" grooves."I find myself endlessly impressed with our ancestors.Judicious use of Google and the link I posted previously
http://home.entouch.net/dmd/chron.htm
should bring up relevant material. Of course, the nature of Google being what it is, you may have to play with the parameters.. a lot in some cases.

However, there is also the possibility the mutation that causes finer hair is associated with a mutation that does provide advantage.

Wedll, the argument is centering around why we would have lost our fur. This is a possibility that has not been discussed. How about as a side effect of neoteny/paedomorphism/prolonged fetal development? Or our subcutaneous fat deposits? An endocrin change? The last one is quite interesting, as per the dog/wolf split*, and the fact that most hirsutism involves the endocrine system.*The wolves that became dogs were less fearful/aggressive than their siblings. Well, it turns out that several mechanisms use the same pathways... the result of less fear and aggression in canids is curly tails and drooping ears.BTW, I turned up a couple of interesting facts concerning hiarlessness and clothes. Genetic studies of skin pigmentation genes indicate that we have been hairless since at least 1.2 MYA, the same time as our longer limbs and extended noses appeared. A study of louse genetics indicates that we started wearing clothes no later than 55 KYA 15 KYA, possibly much earlier.

RAZD: Your argument is based on an assumption that you haven't provided any evidence for. The information that I have seen suggests that it is on shaky ground. Do you have any evidence to support male mate choice as the selective mechanism, and not female choice?Actually, if hairlessness is a byproct of an endocrine shift, it makes a lot more sense in terms of female mate choice. Androgen and testosterone are involved in hirsuteness. They are also involved in agonism. As human/pre-human social structures became more culture based and co-operation became more important, reduced agonism would have been advantageous... and attractive to females. That's just one issue. There's also monogamy. A lower level of "male" hormones" would have led to less "philandering", again more attractive to females. Less hair would have been a physical signal of these traits. Reducing hair in the males would also reduce hair in the females, and as they have less of those hormones to begin with it would have naturally resulted in females having less hair.Just a thought.