Neolithic Clothing in the Game?

I was about 3,000 years too late for Neolithic though XD. 1000-1250 CE was my game, but I guess some things are true of natural materials no matter what period you are pretending you are in.

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Okay, I have been working hard on new reproductions of early western European Neolithic clothing (~5500BCE on the Rhine). Each of the outfits I make are made as with as many period techniques as possible, but sometimes I am required to use a few modern things as the clothing is very small. Outfits, like this one, are similar to what the early people in the game might wear.

I made leggings, breechcloth and leather shirt! \o/
This is really a late fall, early spring outfit. She doesnā€™t have boots yet as I have not made them. She would be wearing leather boots.

Deer leather was used for the outfits. I cut them with an obsidian fleck and sewed them with string. For full size outfits, I make my own twine from flax fiber, but the tiny doll-sized clothing cannot scale properly, so I was forced to use natural cotton =/ Iā€™ll be making more reproductions and I have a series of illustrations ordered up which I will post as well.

Deer leather is cut using an obsidian piece. Flint works too, as does chert. Itā€™s actually quite easy to cut the leather.


As you can see, obsidian cuts well! Not all Neolithic people had obsidian, but other stores work as well, such as flint.

Once the leather is cut, it can be sew with an awl and bone needle if need be.

Here is the set. Two leggings, a long winter breechcloth, leather belts and a long shirt. I have not made boots yet, but those are coming up.

I put these on a 1:6 doll. They didnā€™t fit her very well, but she isnā€™t very curvy and these cloths donā€™t conform well. She needs some boots.


I had a Moana doll sitting around, so I put the outfit on her. It fit her MUCH better.

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What do you use for a needle and thread? I remember leather being stuipdly difficult to sew even with modern metallic needles.

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I used a thick needle as an awl and hammered it with a rock lol. The thread is cotton. As you can see from the pictures, I made some fresh flax thread tonight, but it canā€™t scale small enough while still being strong. I had to use machined cotton string. Even while being authentic, small-scale requires some modification. My full-size reproductions are completely authentic. The best way to write about the Neolithic is to wear the Neolithic LOL the same may be true for making a Neolithic game.

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Haha, now Iā€™m imagining the developers in front of their workstations wearing furs, leather tunics, etc :smiley:

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It may seem funny, but it actually provides a really good mechanism for learning not just what people wore but how it affected them. For example, you you might not realize just how sticky leather is when itā€™s humid or how much it chafes. The string skirt seems like it would tickle, but the ticklish feeling disappears about 30 minutes after putting it on. Using Insight from reenactment, we can begin to suppose how people actually lived in an existential and experimental sort of way. I believe itā€™s also beneficial to archaeology as itā€™s easy to say a culture something, but sometimes much harder to do it yourself. But yes, it would be funny to see them LOL

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I actually have some flints in my desk from a series of test I did for the gameā€¦ until I hit my own thumb.

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(a large piece of obsidian from Arizona)

See? Youā€™ve already discovered the truth of flint-knapping. Wear a cut-resistant glove while doing it. Lol Knapping is a good way to injure your hand, especially if you do it with obsidian. You could literally slice your hand halfway open with obsidian.

(One of many small pieces I made from the big piece. I used these to craft neolithic items)

On an odd side note, some of these specimens can actually be slightly radioactive. For example, my obsidian turns out to contain a little uranium lol You can see it clearly in this gamma spectrum (I toss everything though the gamma spectrometer and ERXRD lol)

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Meanwhile your Neolithic axe polisher is looking down on us (assuming heā€™s from an Indo-European sky worshipping background) going ā€œpfft, look at those idiots, canā€™t even knap flint properly.ā€

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Heā€™d be right.
My goal is to learn these techniques so I can describe them correctly in words, not actually be any good at themā€¦ (though I think the little leather outfit on Moana came out really well!)

My guess is that the average 12-year-old from the Neolithic had significantly better skills for the time period than I do lol Growing up in such a society, the continuous exposure would beat reading books and simple experimental techniques, any day. lol

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Oh yeah, no I wasnā€™t meaning to critique. Itā€™s just a mental image that has always amused me. Itā€™s a shame because Iā€™m pretty sure there are a lot of things that we canā€™t reproduce because of our own lack of skill/not having grown up in that society. (Iā€™ve had first hand experience with this when my little cousin convinced me to attempt to ride a horse bareback because it was ā€œeasyā€ [it wasnā€™t] and my pride couldnā€™t take not giving a shot [it couldā€™ve].

It sometimes gets silly. Iā€™ve known professors who have claimed that early medieval swords where cumbersome and un-wieldable (outside of a Conan the Barbarian sort of style) and nothing would convince them otherwise. Of course they where falling into the trap of comparing them to modern epeeā€™s and foils and forgetting that a desk bound 50 year old man does not equate to a physically active 20 year oldā€¦ /endrant.

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True!!!

Honestly, I found that camping for a night using only neolithic tools, eating the correct foods and wearing the clothes really helped me get a feel for things. So many details are missed if you donā€™t experience them.

Exampleā€¦ early morning has a smell of humid dust mixed with leather and wood ash from the fire. Also, learned that clay helps clean your skin nicely!

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Also that sleeping in hay is a very good way to get flees :stuck_out_tongue:
That you get used to wood-smoke relatively quickly.
That Pete is easier to use for fires then wood when itā€™s wet out.
Pigs head is actually quite tasty.
The list of things you learn is endless :slight_smile:

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Honestly, I adore wood smoke.
I found that putting fragrant herbs near it added a pleasant odder, too!

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I was more thinking of sitting around a fire with friends, and getting woodsmoke in your eyes, rather than the sent.

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Winter Clothing

The screenshot posted by the Devā€™s on Twitter showed the little villagers running around quite bare skinned during the winter (it was meant to be humorous lol). I wanted to show a little bit of early European Neolithic winter clothing.

Here we see two women. They have leather/fur boots. Inside are plant fibers (crushed by rocks to soften) and woven into a basket/like ā€œnetā€ to keep their feet warm. They may be reinforced by a second skin of leather as needed.

Their legs are warmed by leggings. These are simple leather leggings connected to a belt. Fur my be wrapped to increase warmth, as needed. Remember: Pants donā€™t exist yet, though so many illustrations falsely depict them lol

The crotch is guarded by a long leather breechcloth. This works a little like a cod piece. The shirt in the photo is long enough to prevent you from seeing the leggings/breechcloth connections.

The upper body is warmed by a long leather ā€œshirt.ā€ While this could be patch-work, it can also be made from a single skin. You cut a head-hole, place over head and belt at the waist (excess wrapped around you). Using an awl and sinew, thread or leather cord, this can be made more complex.

Fur coat or cape warm the upper body as needed.

Leather or furs can be added to the arms and bound via leather cord or bast thread to provide protections. Even sleeves can be sewn using a leggings-like approach.

Fur hat/mittens can be applied to the head and feet as needed.

During bad weather, a reed cloak (made like a basket, sort of) can be used to force water to run off of the wearer. In the cold, water is the number 1 enemy!!! When traveling, at least two pairs of shoes need to go with you to prevent frostbite!

Here is an example made with real deer hide. I used a Moana doll as she wears it the best lol

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So, I will be spinning flax thread from fiber and then weaving linen cloth, and finally sewing a linen clothing item from that. Iā€™ll post photos of each step. This might be of use to the devā€™s if they add any sewing, weaving, spinning.

Also, I will provide a good explanation of flax farming (sowing, harvesting, retting, threshing, etc.

Iā€™m just waiting for a fresh batch to be shipped to me from the flax farm lol

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That would be great.

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Iā€™ll describe it more of the way it was done back in the day than nowadays of course. Iā€™ll also add spinning and weaving. Iā€™ll see if I can add some citations. I learned how it was done over years of reading for my own works and I didnā€™t save citations as my works are not Academia, theyā€™re based on Academia. Iā€™ll let my archaeologist friends tell me if they disagree LOL

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Winter Clothing

I made some mittens and boots for my Neolithic figure. These were made from deer hide and cotton string (as my hand-made flax string cannot be scaled down to the size, easily). Note: I hand spun the string used in her bone necklace from flax fiber.

I cut some pieces the right size to fit the doll. I was going to use hand spun flax thread (see the thread in the needle) which I spun tonight, using neolithic techniques, but it doesnā€™t scale well.

Here is a boot/shoe being sewn. This takes forever due to the leather thickness.

Here the boots/shoes are on the doll.

Here they are off of the doll. The stitching would not be so prominent on full sized versions.

These simple bits of leather are stitched into simple mittens. Complex mitten shapes are unneeded as the dexterity of leather isnā€™t such that mobility allows for articulation of the fingers. In short, neolithic mittens needed to be removed to do most chores, so they were okay with being simply formed.

Here is a sewn mittens.

Hereā€™s a Moana doll wearing a basic winterized outfit, minus the arm wraps and fur coat or cape (coming soon). She has a tiny ā€œboneā€ bead necklace.

I ordered fur to make a coat and flax to make flax clothing.

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