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A team of researchers led by an archaeologist from the University of Sydney are the first to suggest that eyed needles are a new technological innovation used to decorate clothing for social and cultural purposes, marking a fundamental shift from clothing as protection to clothing as an expression of identity.

“Eared needle tools are an important development in prehistory because they document the transition in the function of clothing from utilitarian to social purposes,” said Dr Ian Gilligan, Honorary Fellow in Archeology at the University of Sydney.

From stone tools that prepared animal skins for humans to use as thermal insulation, to the advent of bone awls and eyed needles to create fitted and embellished clothing, why we began to dress to express ourselves and impress others ?

Dr Gilligan and his co-authors reinterpret the evidence for recent discoveries in the development of clothing in their new Scientific progress paper, “Paleolithic Eyed Needles and the Evolution of Clothing.”

“Why do we wear clothes? We assume it’s part of being human, but once you look at different cultures, you realize that humans have existed and functioned perfectly adequately in society without clothing,” says Dr Gilligan. “What intrigues me is the transition of clothing from a physical necessity in certain environments to a social necessity in all environments.”

The earliest known eyed needles appeared about 40,000 years ago in Siberia. One of the most iconic Paleolithic artifacts of the Stone Age, eyed needles are more difficult to make than bone awls, which are sufficient to create form-fitting clothing. Bone awls are tools made from animal bones that are pointed at the tip. Eye needles are modified bone awls with a perforated opening (eye) to facilitate suturing of a tendon or suture.

Since evidence shows that bone awls were already used to create tailored clothing, the innovation of eyed needles may reflect the production of more complex, multi-layered clothing, as well as the embellishment of clothing by attaching beads and other small decorative elements on clothes.

“We know that clothing until the last ice cycle was only used on an ad hoc basis.” The classic tools we associate with this are skin scrapers or stone scrapers, and we find them appearing and disappearing during the different phases of the last ice age,” explains Dr Gilligan.

Dr. Gilligan and his co-authors argue that clothing became an object of decoration because traditional methods of body decoration, such as painting the body with ocher or deliberate scratching, were not possible during the latter part of the last ice age in the colder parts of Eurasia as people had to wear clothes all the time to survive.

“This is why the appearance of eyed needles is particularly important because it signals the use of clothing as decoration,” says Dr Gilligan. “Eyed needles would be particularly useful for the very fine sewing required to decorate garments.”

Therefore, clothing evolved to serve not only a practical need for protection and comfort against the elements, but also a social, aesthetic function for individual and cultural identity.

The regular wearing of clothing allowed larger and more complex societies to form as people could move to colder climates while cooperating with their tribe or community based on shared clothing styles and symbols. The skills associated with clothing production contributed to more sustainable lifestyles and improved the long-term survival and prosperity of human communities.

Covering the human body regardless of climate is a social practice that has endured. Dr. Gilligan’s future work goes beyond the appearance of clothing as dress and examines the psychological functions and effects of wearing clothing.

“We take it for granted that we feel comfortable wearing clothes and uncomfortable if we are not dressed in public. But how does wearing clothes affect the way we view ourselves, the way we see ourselves as people, and perhaps how we view the environment around us?”