Description

Clothing has been a crucial aspect of modern human survival, since the colonization of the northern latitudes of Eurasia over 40,000 years ago, eventually enabling humans to colonize the New World. Although clothing must have existed among Ice Age foragers, direct evidence for it is rare to non-existent in the archaeological record until only several thousand years ago. Archaeologists must instead rely upon proxy measures for clothing, like the tools used to produce it, to infer its presence and characteristics in Ice Age archaeological sites. In this presentation, Dr. Pelton will detail evidence for clothing production from the La Prele Early Paleoindian Site in Wyoming. La Prele is the oldest archaeological site thus far discovered in Wyoming and is a mammoth kill with an associated campsite. Over a decade of investigations at the site have yielded several dozen bone needle fragments indicative of clothing production. Recent zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS) analysis of these artifacts indicates production from fur bearing animals including foxes, cats, and hares. Spencer argues that the evidence from La Prele is among the best archaeologists have for the types of clothing worn by Ice Age foragers in North America.