The History of Clothing

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Prehistoric · Sub-Saharan Africa · Before 3000 BCE

Prehistoric Sub-Saharan African Clothing

In Sub-Saharan Africa, on the continent where the oldest evidence of clothing has been found, prehistoric communities left bone tools, plant fibers, and some of the earliest known beads, while the antiquity of bark cloth remains uncertain.

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By Dan Schnau · Last updated

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Early Evidence for Clothing

San rock painting of a human figure holding the tail of an eland, Game Pass Shelter, Kamberg, South Africa
San rock painting of a figure holding an eland's tail, Game Pass Shelter, Kamberg, South Africa. Photo: Alandmanson. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.

Africa preserves some of the earliest evidence associated with clothing. Genetic studies of body lice — which require clothing to survive — suggest regular clothing use by modern humans in Africa at least 83,000 and possibly as early as 170,000 years ago.2 This does not establish where clothing was first invented or exclude earlier skin coverings used by other humans.1,2 Bone tools more than 61,000 years old from Sibudu Cave in South Africa include a slender point that its excavators suggest may have been a pin or needle, and a polished, spatula-shaped tool whose wear resembles that on tools used to process animal hides; direct evidence for stitched clothing this early nevertheless remains thin.3

The production of leather from animal hides required considerable skill: skins had to be cut free, scraped clean, and worked into leather or pelts.7 The clearest early evidence for this work comes from the north of the continent, at Contrebandiers Cave in Morocco, where bone scrapers about 90,000 to 120,000 years old carry the grooves and polish of hide scraping, and cut marks on fox bones show that the animals were skinned whole for their pelts.7 Organic materials like these seldom survive, so how much clothing people in the warm tropical regions south of the Sahara wore, and whether animal skins and plant materials served mainly for protection, warmth, or ceremony, is largely unknown.7

For the worldwide evidence on when people first wore clothes, see When were clothes invented?

Bark Cloth and Plant Fibers

Perforated Nassarius shell beads from Blombos Cave, South Africa, about 75,000 years old
Perforated Nassarius kraussianus shell beads, about 75,000 years old, from Blombos Cave, South Africa. Photo: Chris Henshilwood and Francesco d'Errico. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5.

One of sub-Saharan Africa's most distinctive textile traditions is bark cloth, produced by harvesting the inner bark of certain tree species — in Uganda, a fig, Ficus natalensis — and beating it with wooden mallets until it forms a soft, fine sheet. UNESCO describes the craft as a prehistoric technique that predates the invention of weaving.6 Because the cloth itself rarely survives in the archaeological record and the mallets used for it are wooden, how far back the tradition reaches remains uncertain.

Barkcloth maker beating a sheet of reddish-brown fig bark cloth with a grooved wooden mallet
Barkcloth being softened with a grooved wooden beater, Uganda, 2026. Photo: Landsberg-Becher. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Beyond bark cloth, prehistoric sub-Saharan Africans made use of plant fibers: at Border Cave in South Africa, a lump of beeswax and plant resin wrapped in vegetal fibers, probably used for hafting tools, dates to about 40,000 years ago.8 Fibers such as raffia palm, grass, and bast decay quickly, so how they were twisted into string or made into belts, skirts, or loincloths in this early period is largely lost.8 Personal adornment survives better: shell beads dating to about 75,000 years ago from Blombos Cave in South Africa represent some of the earliest known jewelry, and ostrich eggshell beads (made in eastern and southern Africa for at least 50,000 years, and found at Border Cave, where one bead has been directly dated to about 42,000 years ago) point to a rich tradition of decorating the body.4,5,8 These finds do not establish whether adornment began before clothing; the louse estimates suggest clothing was already in use earlier.2

Long multi-strand necklace of small white ostrich eggshell disc beads laid in a museum case
Ostrich eggshell bead necklace, Basarwa (San), Ngwato Reserve, Botswana, collected 1935 (Schapera collection), Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town. Photo: Nkansah Rexford. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0.

Sources

  1. UF study of lice DNA shows humans first wore clothes 170,000 years ago — University of Florida News, 2011.Reference 1
  2. Origin of Clothing Lice Indicates Early Clothing Use by Anatomically Modern Humans in Africa — Toups, Kitchen, Light & Reed, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2011.
    Return to text (3 references)Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3
  3. Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers, Sibudu Cave, South Africa — Backwell, d'Errico & Wadley, Journal of Archaeological Science, 2008.Reference 1
  4. Ancient Shells May Be Earliest Jewels — Scientific American, 2004.Reference 1
  5. Ostrich eggshell beads reveal 50,000-year-old social network across Africa — Popular Archaeology, reporting Miller & Wang, Nature, 2021.Reference 1
  6. Barkcloth making in Uganda — UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, 2008.Reference 1
  7. Stone Age people used bone scrapers to make leather and pelts — Bruce Bower, Science News, 2021.
    Return to text (3 references)Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3
  8. Early evidence of San material culture represented by organic artifacts from Border Cave, South Africa — d'Errico et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012.
    Return to text (3 references)Reference 1 Reference 2 Reference 3