Tuesday 29 January 2013

Modeling Neanderthal clothing using ethnographic analogues


Wales, N., 2012. Modeling Neanderthal clothing using ethnographic analogues. J. Hum. Evol. 63, 781-795.

This study used a large sample of recent human hunter-gatherers and climatic data to predict the percentage of the body that Neanderthals and AMH would have needed to cover and whether they would have required shoes and head coverings when living at known archeological sites under prevailing climatic conditions.  The model predicts that although Neanderthals would have had to cover >70% of their bodies including their head and feet, they need not have worn complex tailored clothing.