If @Uncasual would like me to, I could quickly draw and upload a series of my little sketches for what clothing might look like in the Neolithic to help them with creating ashes and textures. I could optimize my sketches for Simplicity and ease of design. I have created 3D meshes, textures and full animations before so I’m pretty sure I could make drawings that are both realistic and also more easily applicable to 3D modeling.
My drawing isn’t particularly great, but I think it conveys the idea just fine and might give you guys some good ideas. Let me know if you have an interest in this.
A 5000 year-old shoe discovered in Switzerland ^^ It is made of 5mm strips of woven liber, an inner part of the bark. It’s 26 cm long so it surely belonged to an adult.
I set to work creating a bear claw necklace and a pig bone necklace. Their claws obviously came from bears killed while hunting, and pigs have been domesticated by the time of the Neolithic, providing ample bones.
Each bear claw is made from resin. I could not justify using real bear claws, not only for legality but also for animal rights. As you can see, I purchased high-quality replicas, to make up for this.
My Neolithic drill is reasonably effective against real bone, but it is not effective against resin. Resin breaks to easily and even a modern drill bit and drill had about a 50% success rate. I lost a lot of claws.
NOTE: I normally do not use modern-day equipment, but in certain situations it becomes justified. These modern-day resin clause would not probably work with my Neolithic drill, thus forcing me to use a modern drill.
Once the clause were drilled, I applied handmade and hand fired clay beads, all made in the Neolithic fashion and described in previous posts. The string is flax.
The necklace sits pleasantly and provides a beautiful decoration on a hot summer, Neolithic night.
Pigs were domesticated in the Neolithic, and their bones would have been widely available for various tools and artwork. Perhaps this pig was sacrificed in a ceremonial fashion, providing some sort of spiritual power to its bones. Whatever the cause, it could definitely be worn as necklace.
Using a simple linear pottery culture design, I took an obsidian shard and carved lines into the bones. They needed to be decorated. The bones were drilled with a modern drill, my Neolithic drill having suffered a technical problem in needing repair. I was able to drill part of one bone with my Neolithic drill before cracked, so I definitely know it’s doable.
Once the bones were drilled in the flax string and beads were slid into position, I took a clay pot full of twice burned wood ash, powdered, and rubbed it into the bones, using leather to grind it in deep. This gave a beautiful burned punish to the bones accentuated the cuts I had made.
A beautiful necklace, easily a crowed pleaser at any Neolithic ritual.
As you can see, both necklaces work in a similar fashion. Interestingly, due to gravity and little physics, they automatically conform to any shape and size person wearing them.
So I went back and worked on getting my beaded capelet realized. I had some troubles with the initial design, mostly having to do with my own inability to properly craft what I had envisioned. Since the item is more conjecture InDesign, while accurate in materials and techniques, the exact aesthetic is a bit open to interpretation.
As you can see, the strings of beads hanging nicely around the model, besides around the shoulders big joint together to make a single garment from up put what otherwise be strings of just beads.
I had originally thought to cover the breasts, but it occurs to me that most women in the Neolithic would have had trouble with this. Not having invented the bra, breasts would hang down after not so many years, and worrying about covering them with the beads would make less sense.
I’m going to rip this apart and remake it using only hand-spun flax, thus making the peace completely authentic in construction. It will also be slightly better laid out.
On a side note, here are two of my mannequins dressed for a fertility festival or perhaps some other form of late spring ceremony. You’ll note that I had not quite finished making the capelet at this point and there is one missing strand that is later applied (see above).
I should point out that I was given a large bag of uncarded wool. Spinning uncarded wool is tough, but it is both good practice and likely what early Neolithic folk did.
This is the first prototype of an early Neolithic string skirt I am making. I used modern tools and string for this prototype, but I am creating a version using absolutely only Neolithic techniques and materials. This means I will fabricate my own clay beads, hand spin over 400m of flax and wool and create the entire thing by hand.
The final version of this that I make will be entered into an international fiber and textile show, go I’m making the reproduction for my own personal purposes. I can safely tell you that is quite comfortable to wear and looks quite nice.
An early Neolithic woman in Western Europe or Anatolia would certainly have worn something like this for ceremonies, as well as the plainer and more rugged version, seen below, for everyday wear ( the way leather wrap for a loincloth would be a much more common lower garment) It is quite comfortable, especially in the heat, as well as much more modest than people might suspect.
I have been reading a wonderful book by Karina Grömer, a doctor and published author who works at the national museum of Vienna. She Wrote, along with the help of many others, a wonderful textbook on prehistoric textiles. If you really want to get a good idea what prehistoric people wore, this is a good book.
Book:
The Art of Prehistoric Textile Making. : The development of craft traditions and clothing in Central Europe
** Neolithic people did not wear much woven clothing**
Just as several other archaeological books I have read have said, Neolithic people did not where a lot of woven clothing for several reasons.
The cost in arable land, farming, spinning and weaving we’re simply not worth the end result. They would be in later periods when communities were larger and tools for doing other projects had become more advanced.
The climate in many places didn’t necessitate woven clothing, and in those places were woven clothing would be useful, Society was typically either Mesolithic or early Neolithic. By the time Northern societies move to the Neolithic, more advanced Technologies, allowing for textiles to be effective, had come into being
Rehashing reason 1, leather provides a substitute which is simply too readily available to justify most other forms of clothing.
Most importantly, there isn’t any evidence supporting the use of advanced textiles and full body garments made from textiles. There is evidence of small garments, such as sashes, shawls, loincloths and similar.
Next, I’ll begin time strings to it. So much work for just one garment! This is one of two waist cords required to make the Neolithic string skirt I am making using only Neolithic tools, techniques and materials. Absolutely nothing modern.
This is Otzi the Ice man. He is wearing a loincloth, leggings, reed cloak, boots, a sort of coat and hat. He is 1000 to 3,000 years more advanced than the Neolithic, yet his clothes appear more primitive than most you see on reenactors… Why is that?
Dr. Dilley, et. al. certainly have nice clothing as well as high quality tools. In fact, I have his book, and certainly like it. I would say that there are a couple things to consider when looking at the very wide-ranging depictions of Neolithic clothing:
There are almost no examples of Neolithic clothing. We don’t find them recovered, we don’t find them depicted on figurines or on other media, other than an occasional shape on a figurine which may or may not be clothing. We know what they could have made from their tools, but we don’t know what they did make.*
I find it difficult to reconcile more advanced woven designs with the fact that much later examples of recovered garments from the copper and Bronze Age are typically less advanced in their design than those often depicted by Neolithic reenactors (not referring to the ones that you spoke of. Theirs we’re actually not bad).**
You’ll find garments created by modern reenactors are often informed in design by modern conventions of modesty. Just looking at early Bronze Age clothing for analogous cultures from other areas, such as Native American, shows that modern Western European conventions on modesty need not inform prehistoric European clothing. Just look at Egtved Girl 2 get an idea of how different our cultures were. Additionally, almost all Neolithic artwork depicting people is drawn nude. This doesn’t mean people were nude, as religious iconography is often depicted nude, just that they were essentially less conservative in there modesty than we are.
So when somebody asks if a linen tunic is reasonable, it is important to point out that we don’t know whether they made them or not, as an example. But one must consider the lack of benefits such a garment provides and the high cost of its manufacturer versus some other garment, like leather. Now humans make things that do not satisfy the concept of efficiency or reasonability, so again there’s no way to really know. I typically go with what seems more likely.
[ I make enough of the stuff that I can tell you it’s an absurd amount of work. Leather is so much easier]
*In her book, The Art of Prehistoric Textile Making, by Dr. Karina Grömer, (p. 352), Dr. Grömer explicitly states that the idea of Neolithic people wearing lots of linen clothing is likely false.
** You’ll note that clothing designs to depict the Neolithic almost always show cold weather clothing, even in the summer. Partially this is because cold weather clothing is more covering providing the modern modesty we need. Otzi the Iceman wore a small letter loincloth. No matter how accurate that maybe, you wouldn’t find a modern reenactor strutting around in that. That doesn’t invalidate its existence, but we must keep this in mind as we base our decisions on clothing on what we see in the internet.
***Also, many parts of Europe get quite warm in the summer. Anatolia and the Levant become quite hot. I would expect people living in these areas to dress similar to the Anasazi of the Southern Southwest America. Probably nothing more than a simple leather loincloth and perhaps a pair of sandals. You don’t see this with reenactors because it wouldn’t be considered socially acceptable, and yet you occasionally see it on properly depicted imagery of Catalhoyuk
As an addendum to what I just said, I should probably also address the three major parts of the Neolithic, early, middle and late, with respect to clothing. Many archaeologists break the Neolithic up into strata because of the length of the time period and then he changes which occur during it.
Early:
Clothing would likely resemble the Mesolithic. Leather clothing, shell and bone added to designs. There might be limited use of fiber string and bark textiles, but nothing terribly complex. Winter wear involved, boots, gloves capes, heavy leggings, loincloths, various forms of coat for cloak and generally the kinds of clothing Otzi the Iceman wore.
These were well-formed and pretty advanced by that time, likely thanks to their extensive use during the Ice Age preceding the Mesolithic. Summer wear involves light leggings, loincloth and perhaps some form of upper garment when it got cool, like a shawl or a capelet.
Middle:
Almost the same as the early, but with a increased amount of textile production. Villages are still very tiny and resources for textiles are very limited. You’ll get strips of cloth being made on small warp weighted looms which can then be added together to make larger textile pieces. You probably won’t be seeing large panel textiles, and clothing like shirts will still be extremely uncommon.
You can expect aprons, shawls and other constructs which serve the purpose of modern-day shirts and pants any more primitive fashion. The predominant clothing material at this point is still probably leather.
Late:
This is when textiles begin to develop with enough capability to match their later periods. Larger warp weighted Looms have been recovered from this period, or at least their weights and the holes which held them up, and we can suppose larger panel cloth is beginning to be made in a limited fashion.
Again, large textiles would probably have been reserved for special occasions and important people. But now that tribes are becoming much larger and more organized, you would begin to develop social structure with more important people as opposed to simple family units. This is when you begin to see a break from what quite frankly is almost Mesolithic looking clothing. I would suspect early tunics are being made comma as well as woven skirts, and perhaps even the first woven tops, other than a simple shawl or capelet.
I find that the two biggest mistakes I see written by people are the assumptions that just because Neolithic people could do something, that they would automatically have done it. Secondly, that just because Neolithic people begin the foundation of what becomes modern society that they would immediately switch all of their clothing from what they had used for thousands of years into a more Iron Age looking outfit with in just a short time. It simply doesn’t make any sense and isn’t supported by any evidence
Remember: it was 1000-3000 years after that late Neolithic that you find something as advances as this:
This is absolutely incredible! I’ve been avidly reading this thread since I recently registered onto the forum. You have taught me an exceptional amount of details regarding Neolithic era clothing and truly shed light upon just how difficult it must have been for them to craft! Thank you!
During the warmer seasons, Neolithic people probably went barefoot. Shoes are costly in time and materials to make. However, colder temperatures and rougher terrain can both force the necessity a footwear, regardless of its cost in time and materials. To that end, I decided to make a replica of a Neolithic bast fiber sandal.
The construction of the shoe is rather simple, if not time-consuming. One takes bast fibers and spins them into thread. The threads are then twine, the result of spinning two balls of thread around one another to make a single two ply yarn. The plyed twine is then braided. A piece of two ply twine is then wrapped around the outside forming a jacket. In this way, long cords of bast fiber are formed which can be wrapped around one another to make the sole of the shoe. They are sewn in place with single strands of bast thread, using a bone needle.
The result is a strong and comfortably springy soul for the foot. Simply braiding and attaching some side loops and a toe thong allows the sandal to comfortably be secured to the foot.
Interested in working the flax fields? Have an enemy tribe to raid? Or perhaps you simply want to go on a Neolithic stroll that that that this is the footwear for you!
! Can we have your opinion on 
