How they were dressed in the primitive era. Primitive costume

At the beginning of the Mesolithic era, with a change in climate, communities of primitive people began to develop new ways of obtaining food, no longer limited to simple gathering and hunting. With the birth of cattle breeding and agriculture, people began to produce their own food. This was the formation of an ancient civilization, a historical milestone in the development of mankind. At the same time, the concept of clothing appeared, which became a way of protection from the cold climate, various insects, and the claws of predators. It could soften the blow of the enemy and even served as a screen from evil spirits.

Body painting instead of clothes

One of the first manifestations of ancient people's desire for self-expression was body painting and tattooing. Even in those distant times, people already knew how to prepare paints of a fairly wide palette, using coal, ocher, lime, manganese, adding fat - to create makeup that was applied to the body. The process of coloring itself, as a rule, had a deep meaning - be it the application of a battle pattern that brings terror to the enemy, or a ritual drawing for the rite of passage of a young man into an adult man. The drawings conveyed information about where the person was from, what tribe, what his status was, his merits.

Elements of primitive clothing

The headdress appeared later, reflecting the social status of its owner. A variety of headdresses became a distinctive feature of priests, shamans, and rulers.

Elements of clothing also include jewelry that was made from fangs, bones, tusks, shells, feathers, pearls, corals and other materials. These things performed a double function: they were carriers of information about a person and protected the owner’s body from exposure to the external environment.

Mammoth ivory jewelry

The main material for the production of clothing at that time was animal skins. Most likely, the inhabitants of the North were the first to sew clothes from pieces of skins. The main types of clothing worn were pants, cloaks and tunics, which could be decorated with stones and shells. Fur shoes were sewn to insulate and protect feet. Thin strips of leather were used as ribbons; needles for sewing the leather together with “threads” from tendons were made from bone.

First fabric

A little later, the primitive people of the Middle East learned to make fabric from wool. In other regions, plant fibers - flax, bast, cactus, cotton - became the basis for clothing. Dyes used for dyeing clothes and tanning hides were also prepared from plants.

Development of clothing

The first cloaks made from skins later developed into different types of clothing worn on the shoulders - ponchos, tunics, shirts, togas, burkas. Loincloths turned into skirts and pants. Simple pieces of leather on the feet became the basis for the development of such types of shoes as moccasins and chuni. Shoes were also made from wood and bark. The evolution of clothing occurred constantly and steadily; it increasingly corresponded to the special needs of each nation, adapted to the climatic characteristics of different regions, and became more diverse and technologically complex.

Primitive man's clothing

From the beginning of the Mesolithic era (tenth to eighth millennium BC), climatic conditions began to change on Earth, and primitive communities discovered new sources of food and adapted to new conditions. During this era, man transitioned from gathering and hunting to a productive economy - agriculture and cattle breeding - the “Neolithic revolution”, which became the beginning of the history of civilization of the ancient world. At this time, the first clothes are born.

Clothing appeared in ancient times as a means of protection from unfavorable climate, from insect bites, wild animals while hunting, from blows from enemies in battle and, no less important, as a means of protection from evil forces. We can get some idea of what clothing was like in the primitive era not only from archaeological data, but also from information about the clothing and lifestyle of primitive tribes who still live on Earth in some inaccessible areas and far from modern civilization: in Africa, Central and South America, Polynesia.

Even before clothes

A person’s appearance has always been one of the ways of self-expression and self-awareness, determining the individual’s place in the world around him, an object of creativity, a form of expression of ideas about beauty. The most ancient types of “clothing” are painting and tattooing, which performed the same protective functions as clothing covering the body. This is evidenced by the fact that coloring and tattooing are common among those tribes that even in our time do without any other types of clothing.

Body painting also protected against the influence of evil spirits and insect bites and was supposed to terrify the enemy in battle. Make-up (a mixture of fat and paint) was known already in the Stone Age: in the Paleolithic people knew about 17 paints. The most basic: white (chalk, lime), black (charcoal, manganese ore), ocher, which made it possible to obtain shades from light yellow to orange and red. Body and face painting was a magical rite, often a sign of an adult male warrior and was first applied during the initiation rite (initiation into adult full members of the tribe).

The coloring also had an informational function - it reported on belonging to a certain clan and tribe, social status, personal qualities and merits of its owner. A tattoo (a pattern pricked or carved into the skin), unlike coloring, was a permanent decoration and also denoted a person’s tribal affiliation and social status, and could also be a kind of chronicle of individual achievements throughout life.

The hairstyle and headdress were of particular importance, since it was believed that hair had magical powers, especially a woman’s long hair (therefore, many nations had a ban on women appearing in public with their heads uncovered). All manipulations with hair had a magical meaning, since it was believed that life force was concentrated in the hair. A change in hairstyle has always meant a change in social status, age and social and gender role. The headdress may have appeared as part of the ceremonial costume during rituals of rulers and priests. Among all peoples, the headdress was a sign of sacred dignity and high position.

The same ancient type of clothing as makeup is jewelry, which originally performed a magical function in the form of amulets and amulets. At the same time, ancient jewelry served the function of indicating a person’s social status and an aesthetic function. Primitive jewelry was made from a wide variety of materials: animal and bird bones, human bones (among those tribes where cannibalism existed), animal fangs and tusks, bat teeth, bird beaks, shells, dried fruits and berries, feathers, corals, pearls, metals

Thus, most likely, the symbolic and aesthetic functions of clothing preceded its practical purpose - protecting the body from environmental influences. Jewelry could also serve an informational function, being a kind of writing among some peoples (for example, among the South African Zulu tribe, “talking” necklaces were common in the absence of writing).

The emergence of clothing and fashion

Clothing is one of the oldest inventions of man. Already in the monuments of the late Paleolithic, stone scrapers and bone needles were discovered, which were used for processing and stitching skins. The material for clothing, in addition to skins, was leaves, grass, tree bark (for example, tapa - material made from processed bast among the inhabitants of Oceania). Hunters and fishermen used fish skins, sea lion intestines and other sea animals, and bird skins.

With the cold weather in many regions, the need arose to protect the body from the cold, which led to the appearance of clothing made from skins - the oldest material for making clothing among hunting tribes. Before the invention of weaving, clothing made from skins was the main clothing of primitive peoples.

Hunters of the last Ice Age were probably the first people to wear clothing. Clothes were made from animal skins sewn together with strips of leather. Animal skins were first pinned and scraped, then washed and pulled tightly onto a wooden frame to prevent them from shrinking as they dried. The tough, dry skin was then softened and cut to make clothing.

The clothes were cut out, and holes were made along the edges with a pointed stone awl. The holes made it much easier to pierce the skins with a bone needle. Prehistoric people made pins and needles from shards of bone and antler, which they then polished by grinding them against stone. The scraped skins were also used to make tents, bags and bedding.

The first clothes consisted of simple pants, tunics and cloaks, decorated with beads made of painted stones, teeth, and shells. They also wore fur shoes tied with leather laces. Animals provided skins for fabrics, tendons for threads, and bones for needles. Clothing made from animal skins protected from cold and rain and allowed primitive people to live in the far north.

Some time after the beginning of agriculture in the Middle East, wool began to be made into cloth. In other parts of the world, plant fibers such as flax, cotton, bast and cactus were used for these purposes. The fabric was dyed and decorated with vegetable dyes.

Stone Age people used flowers, stems, bark and leaves of numerous plants to obtain dyes. The flowers of the gorse and the tincture's navel produced a range of colors - from bright yellow to brownish-green.

Plants like indigowort and woad provided a rich blue color, while the bark, leaves and walnut shells provided a reddish-brown color. Plants were also used for tanning hides: the skin was softened by soaking in water with oak bark.

Both men and women in the Stone Age wore jewelry. Necklaces and pendants were made from all kinds of natural materials - elephant or mammoth tusk. Wearing a leopard bone necklace was believed to provide magical powers. Brightly colored pebbles, snail shells, fish bones, animal teeth, sea shells, eggshells, nuts and seeds, mammoth and walrus tusks, fish bones and bird feathers - everything was used. We know about the variety of materials for jewelry from rock paintings in caves and ornaments discovered in burials.

Later they also began to make beads - from semi-precious amber and jadeite, jet and clay. The beads were strung on thin strips of leather or twine made from plant fibers. Women braided their hair and pinned it with combs and pins, and turned strings of shells and teeth into beautiful head decorations. People probably painted their bodies and lined their eyes with dyes like red ocher, and gave themselves tattoos and piercings.

Skins removed from killed animals were processed, as a rule, by women using special scrapers made of stone, bones, and shells. When processing the skin, they first scraped off the remaining meat and tendons from the inner surface of the skin, then removed the hair in a variety of ways, depending on the region. For example, the primitive peoples of Africa buried skins in the ground along with ash and leaves, in the Arctic they soaked them in urine (skins were treated in the same way in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome), then the skin was tanned to give it strength, and also rolled, squeezed, and pounded. using special leather grinders to add elasticity.

In general, many methods of tanning leather are known: with the help of decoctions of oak and willow bark, in Russia, for example, they fermented it - soaked it in sour bread solutions; in Siberia and the Far East, fish bile, urine, liver and brains of animals were rubbed into the skin. Nomadic pastoral peoples used fermented milk products, boiled animal liver, salt, and tea for this purpose. If the top grain layer was removed from fat-tanned leather, suede was obtained.

Animal skins are still the most important material for making clothing, but, nevertheless, the use of sheared (plucked, selected) animal hair was a great invention. Both nomadic pastoral and sedentary agricultural peoples used wool. It is likely that the oldest method of processing wool was felting: the ancient Sumerians in the third millennium BC. wore felt clothes.

Many items made of felt (headdresses, clothing, blankets, carpets, shoes, cart decorations) were found in Scythian burials in the Pazyryk mounds of the Altai Mountains (VI-V centuries BC). Felt was obtained from sheep, goat, camel, yak, horsehair, etc. wool. Felting felt was especially widespread among the nomadic peoples of Eurasia, for whom it also served as a material for making dwellings (for example, yurts among the Kazakhs).

Among those peoples who were engaged in gathering and then became farmers, clothing was known from specially processed bark of bread, mulberry or fig trees. Among some peoples of Africa, Indonesia and Polynesia, such bark fabric is called “tapa” and is decorated with multi-colored patterns using paint applied with special stamps.

The emergence of weaving

The separation of agriculture and cattle breeding into separate types of labor was accompanied by the separation of crafts. Agricultural and pastoral tribes invented a spindle, a loom, and tools for processing leather and sewing clothes from fabrics and leather (in particular, needles from fish and animal bones or metal).

Having learned the art of spinning and weaving in the Neolithic era, man initially used the fibers of wild plants, but the transition to cattle breeding and agriculture made it possible to use the wool of domestic animals and fibers of cultivated plants (flax, hemp, cotton) to make fabrics. They were first used to weave baskets, canopies, nets, snares, ropes, and then a simple weaving of stems, bast fibers or fur strips turned into weaving. Weaving required a long, thin and uniform thread, twisted from various fibers.

During the Neolithic era, a great invention appeared - the spindle (the principle of its operation - twisting fibers - is preserved in modern spinning machines). Spinning was the occupation of women who also made clothes, so for many peoples the spindle was a symbol of a woman and her role as the mistress of the house.

Weaving was also the work of women, and only with the development of commodity production did it become the lot of male artisans. The loom was formed from a weaving frame on which warp threads were pulled, through which the weft threads were then passed using a shuttle. In ancient times, three types of primitive looms were known:

1. A vertical loom with one wooden beam (beam) hanging between two racks, in which the thread tension was ensured using clay weights suspended from the warp threads (the ancient Greeks had similar looms).

2. A horizontal machine with two fixed bars, between which the base was tensioned. It was used to weave fabric of a strictly defined size (the ancient Egyptians had such looms).

3. Machine with rotating beam shafts.

Fabrics were made from banana bast, hemp and nettle fibers, flax, wool, silk - depending on the region, climate and traditions.

In primitive communities and societies of the Ancient East, there was a strict and rational distribution of labor between men and women. Women, as a rule, were engaged in making clothes: they spun threads, wove fabrics, sewed leather and skins, decorated clothes with embroidery, appliqué, drawings made using stamps, etc.

Types of clothing of primitive man

Embroidered clothing was preceded by its prototypes: a primitive cloak (skin) and a loin cover. Various types of shoulder clothing originate from the cloak; subsequently, a toga, tunic, poncho, burka, shirt, etc. arose from it. Belt clothing (apron, skirt, trousers) evolved from the hip cover.

The simplest ancient footwear was a sandal, or a piece of animal skin wrapped around the foot. The latter is considered the prototype of the leather morshni (pistons) of the Slavs, the chuvyak of the Caucasian peoples, and the moccasins of the American Indians. Tree bark (in Eastern Europe) and wood (shoes among some peoples of Western Europe) were also used for shoes.

Headdresses, protecting the head, already in ancient times played the role of a sign indicating social status (headdresses of a leader, priest, etc.), and were associated with religious and magical ideas (for example, they depicted the head of an animal).

Clothing was usually adapted to the conditions of the geographical environment and in different climatic zones it differs in shape and material. The oldest clothing of the peoples of the tropical forest zone (in Africa, South America, etc.) is a loincloth, an apron, and a blanket over the shoulders. In moderately cold and arctic regions, clothing covers the entire body. The northern type of clothing is divided into moderate northern and clothing of the Far North (the latter is entirely fur).

The peoples of Siberia are characterized by two types of fur clothing: in the subpolar zone - blind, that is, without a slit, worn over the head (among the Eskimos, Chukchi, Nenets, etc.), in the taiga zone - swinging, with a slit in the front (among the Evenks, Yakuts, etc.). A unique set of clothing made from suede or tanned leather developed among the Indians of the forest belt of North America: women had a long shirt, men had a shirt and high leggings.

Forms of clothing are closely related to human economic activities. Thus, in ancient times, peoples engaged in nomadic cattle breeding developed a special type of clothing convenient for riding - wide trousers and a robe for men and women.

As society developed, differences in social and family status increased their influence on clothing. The clothes of men and women, girls and married women began to differ; everyday, festive, wedding, funeral and other clothes arose. As labor was divided, various types of professional clothing appeared; already in the early stages of history, clothing reflected ethnic characteristics (clan, tribal), and later - national ones.

The article uses materials from the site www.Costumehistory.ru

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Hunters of the last Ice Age were probably the first people to wear clothing. They needed it for protection from the cold. Clothes were made from animal skins sewn together with strips of leather. Animal skins were first secured on pegs and scraped out. They were then washed and pulled tightly onto a wooden frame to prevent them from shrinking as they dried. The tough, dry skin was then softened and cut to make clothing.

The first clothes consisted of simple pants, tunics and cloaks, decorated with beads made of painted stones, teeth, and shells. They also wore fur shoes tied with leather laces. Animals provided skin instead of fabric, sinew instead of thread, and bone instead of needles. Clothing made from animal skins protected against cold and rain and allowed primitive people to live in the far north.

Plants like indigowort and woad provided a rich blue color, while the bark, leaves and walnut shells provided a reddish-brown color. The plants were also used for tanning hides. The skin was softened by soaking in water with oak bark.

Both men and women in the Stone Age wore jewelry. Necklaces and pendants were made from all kinds of natural materials. Brightly colored pebbles, snail shells, fish bones, animal teeth, seashells, eggshells, nuts and seeds - everything was used.

From rock paintings in caves and designs found in burials, we know of a wide variety of materials used in Stone Age jewelry. Shells were highly prized and some were traded over long distances. Other materials included deer teeth, mammoth and walrus tusks, fish bones and bird feathers.

Later they also began to make beads - from semi-precious amber and jadeite, jet and clay. The beads were strung on thin strips of leather or twine made from plant fibers. Stone Age people believed that wearing a leopard bone necklace gave them magical powers.

Other jewelry included bracelets made from elephant or mammoth ivory. Strings of shells and teeth were turned into beautiful head decorations. Women braided their hair and pinned it with combs and pins. People probably painted their bodies and lined their eyes with dyes like red ochre. They may also have had tattoos and piercings.

When answering the question " when did clothes appear"The opinions of scientists differ. According to the most cautious hypothesis, clothing appeared about 40 thousand years ago, which is confirmed by archaeological data, since the oldest found sewing needles date back to this time. According to the most daring hypotheses, the appearance of clothing could coincide with the loss human ancestors of the main part of the hair, which happened about 1.2 million years ago. There is also a hypothesis that the time of the appearance of the first clothing can be determined based on when body lice, which live only on clothing, appeared. Geneticists say that body lice separated from head lice at least 83 thousand years ago, and possibly even earlier than 170 thousand years ago.There are also bolder estimates of the time of appearance of body lice - from 220 thousand to 1 million years ago.

Most likely, clothing arose not so much as protection from the cold (tribes are known who went without clothing, even living in a harsh climate, for example, the Indians of Tierra del Fuego), but as magical protection from outside threats. Amulets, tattoos, and painting on the naked body initially played the same role as later clothing, protecting the owner with magical power. Subsequently, the tattoo patterns were transferred to the fabric. For example, the multi-colored checkered tattoo pattern of the ancient Celts remained the national pattern of Scottish fabric.

The first materials for clothing of primitive man were plant fibers and skins. The methods of wearing skins as clothing varied. This includes wrapping it around the torso and attaching it to the belt, which provides good cover for the pelvis and legs; putting it on the shoulders through the slot for the head (the future amice), throwing it on the back and tying the paws around the neck to create a warm cape in the form of a cloak. The more a person complicated his clothing, the more various fasteners and additions appeared on it. These are claws, bones, bird feathers, animal fangs.

Clothing of the ancient Germans of the Stone Age:

At the Paleolithic site of Sungir (territory of the Vladimir region), the estimated age of which is 25 thousand years, in 1955 the burials of teenagers were found: a boy 12-14 years old and a girl 9-10 years old. The teenagers' clothes were trimmed with mammoth bone beads (up to 10 thousand pieces), which made it possible to reconstruct their clothes (which turned out to be similar to the costume of modern northern peoples). A reconstruction of clothing from the Sungir site can be seen in the following picture:

In 1991, the ice mummy of the primitive man “Ötzi”, who lived 3300 BC, was found in the Alps. Ötzi's clothes were partially preserved and were able to be reconstructed (see picture).

Ötzi's clothing was quite elaborate. He wore a woven straw cloak, as well as a leather vest, belt, leggings, loincloth and boots. In addition, a bearskin hat with a leather strap across the chin was discovered. The wide, waterproof boots were apparently designed for walking in the snow. They used bearskin for the soles, deerskin for the uppers, and bast for lacing. Soft grass was tied around the leg and used as warm socks. The vest, belt, windings and loincloth were made from strips of leather sewn together with sinew. A bag with useful things was sewn to the belt: a scraper, a drill, flint, a bone arrow and a dry mushroom used as tinder.
In addition, about 57 tattoos of dots, lines and crosses were found on Ötzi's body.

Primitive costume

THE APPEARANCE OF CLOTHING

Archaeological excavations show that clothing appeared at the earliest stages of the development of human society (40-25 thousand years ago).

Clothing, like any item of decorative and applied art, combines beauty and practicality. By protecting the human body from cold and heat, precipitation and wind, clothing performs a practical function; decorating it is an aesthetic function.

For the practical purpose of protection from bad weather and insect bites, people in ancient times coated their bodies with clay, damp earth, and fat. Then vegetable dyes were added to these lubricants - ocher, soot, carmine, indigo, lime, and the body was painted in various ways and colors for aesthetic purposes. Over time, the fragile surface coloring gives way to a tattoo: a layer of paint is passed under the skin in the form of various patterns. In the same way, feathers, bones, hair, and teeth of killed animals were initially worn on the body as protective and symbolic elements of the costume. When the body is increasingly covered with the fibrous materials of the clothing itself, a person creates artificial attachment points for pendants-symbols, piercing holes in the ears, nose, lips, cheeks, and wears them as jewelry.

Body painting and tattooing were the direct predecessors of clothing. However, even with the advent of clothing made from fibrous materials, they continue to remain in the costume, performing illusory and aesthetic functions.

The tattoo designs were subsequently transferred to the fabric. Thus, the multi-colored checkered tattoo pattern of the ancient Celts remained the national pattern of Scottish fabric.

The significance of decorations in historical costume increased and expanded: class, symbolic, aesthetic. Their forms became more complex and diversified: removable, fastened to the body (bracelets, rings, hoops, earrings); motionless, fixed on fabric (embroidery, printed design, relief decor).

MAIN TYPES OF CLOTHING IN PRIMITIVE SOCIETY

The shape of the human body and lifestyle determined the first primitive types of clothing. Animal skins or plant materials were woven into rectangular pieces and draped over the shoulders or hips, tied, or wrapped around the body horizontally, diagonally, or in a spiral. This is how two main types of clothing appeared based on the attachment point: shoulder and waist. Their most ancient form is draped clothing. It enveloped the body and was held in place with ties, belts, and fasteners. Over time, a more complex form of clothing arose - an invoice, which could be closed and swinging. They began to bend panels of fabric along the warp or weft and sew them on the sides, leaving slits for the arms in the upper part of the fold and cutting out a hole for the head in the center of the fold. The overhead closed clothing was put on over the head, the swinging one had a slit in the front from top to bottom.

MAN AND CLOTHING

Try to imagine yourself naked. Not in your bed at night, not making love, not washing in the bathroom. Try to imagine yourself naked on the street, in a cafe, in a movie, at work. Remember how you felt when your fly came undone or a button on your blouse fell off. And try to say a list of these emotions to yourself. Shame, discomfort, anger, irritation - just to name a few. But no one could have noticed what happened to you. Now imagine that suddenly you find yourself without any clothes at all.

It is quite difficult to imagine such a situation, because we are not somewhere in the deserts of Australia, but in a big city, in the capital of a huge country. And we don’t tend to think about such things. However, it is precisely in the described spectrum of emotions of a person left without clothes that the secret of its (clothes) appearance lies. Not in climate change, not in abstract shame, which is described in the Bible, Koran, Talmud.

Modern researchers of the psychology of primitive people are increasingly coming to the conclusion that the reason for the appearance of clothing was fear. Fear of being naked in the face of danger. First, we asked you to imagine yourself naked on the street or at work. Let's change the problem conditions a little.

Imagine that for some reason you find yourself in a position where you need to fight. The enemy looks at you furiously, clenching his fists, you get closer. And suddenly you realize that you are completely naked, that you have no, no clothes left on you! Now what? I'm sure you won't be able to fight at full strength. If you don't believe me, try throwing a few punches naked at home in front of a mirror.

It was this fear, the reasons for which are hidden in the depths of our subconscious, that became the basis for the appearance of clothing. Understanding human psychology is extremely important in order to understand why the history of clothing developed the way it did and not otherwise.

But what did the first people wear? The answer is simple: in conditions when there were no such important incentives as fashion, public opinion, or the social structure of society, the only purpose of clothing was to save a person from the feeling of fear. And since the first people appeared, as we now know, in Africa, there was no such factor as weather conditions.

The first clothes apparently appeared about a hundred thousand years ago and were tanned animal skins. Obviously, the first thing people wanted and tried to protect with clothing was their intimate areas. So the first garment is loincloths. In addition, at the same time, clothing items such as arm sleeves and knee pads appeared to protect against possible damage.

We will conclude the article on the history of clothing of primitive people with the Neolithic era, the beginning of which is considered to be the middle of the tenth millennium BC. At this time, people already had many skills for creating a wardrobe, and archaeologists find a variety of types of clothing: sleeveless vests, shirts, stockings! In addition, woven clothing appeared (before that, clothing was made only from the skins of killed animals), and by the middle of the Neolithic, such almost modern elements as an oar shirt (unbuttoned in the middle) appeared.

So, we found out that the first people began to dress because of the subconscious fear of being naked in the face of an enemy or a wild animal. The importance of clothing can be seen, in addition to the obvious, from how quickly (historically) the methods of creating it developed.

Only weapons, which were no less necessary, developed at the same speed. Neither the arts nor the methods of obtaining food have undergone such changes over a similar period of time. Obviously, issues related to clothing worried primitive people extremely much, perhaps no less than you and I!

THE ORIGIN OF CLOTHING AND ITS MAIN FUNCTIONS

Archaeological excavations show that clothing appeared in the earliest stages of human development. Already in the Paleolithic era, man was able, using bone needles, to sew, weave and bind various natural materials - leaves, straw, reeds, animal skins - to give them the desired shape. Natural materials were also used as headdresses, such as a hollowed out pumpkin, coconut shell, ostrich egg or tortoise shell.

Shoes arose much later and were less common than other elements of the costume.

Clothing, like any item of decorative and applied art, combines beauty and practicality, protecting the human body from cold and heat, precipitation and wind; it performs a practical function, and by decorating it, an aesthetic one.

It is difficult to say exactly which of the functions of clothing is more ancient... Despite the cold, rain and snow, the aborigines of Tierra del Fuego walked naked, and East African tribes near the equator dressed in long fur coats made of goat skins during the holidays. Ancient frescoes from the 4th millennium BC. e. show that only people of noble classes wore clothes, while the rest went naked.

So, it is assumed that clothing first arose as a means of decoration and class distinction for a person...

The direct predecessors of clothing are tattooing, body painting and the application of magical signs to it, with which people sought to protect themselves from evil spirits and strange forces of nature, to frighten enemies and win over friends.

Subsequently, tattoo patterns began to be transferred to fabric. For example, the multi-colored checkered pattern of the ancient Celts remained the national pattern of Scottish fabric.

The shape of the human body and lifestyle determined the first primitive forms of clothing. Animal skins or plant materials were woven into rectangular pieces and draped over the shoulders or hips, tied, or wrapped around the body horizontally, diagonally, or in a spiral.

This is how one of the main types of clothing of a person in a primitive society appeared: draped clothing. Over time, more complex clothing arose: an invoice, which could be closed and swinging. They began to bend panels of fabric along the warp or weft and sew them on the sides, leaving slits for the arms in the upper part of the fold and a hole for the head in the center of the fold.

The closed-up clothing was worn over the head, while the swinging one had a front slit from top to bottom.

Draped and overlaid clothing has survived to this day as the main forms of fastening it on the human figure. Shoulder, waist, and hip clothing is represented today by a variety of assortments, designs, cuts...

The historical development of basic forms of clothing took place in direct connection with the economic conditions of the era, aesthetic and moral requirements and the general artistic style in art. And changes in the style of an era are always associated with ideological shifts occurring in society. Within each style, there is a more mobile and short-term phenomenon - fashion, which affects all sectors of human activity.

Fashion is the temporary dominance of certain forms, associated with a person’s constant need for diversity and novelty in the reality around him.

THE EMERGENCE OF COSTUME AND WEAVING

From the beginning of the Mesolithic (tenth to eighth millennium BC), when climatic conditions, flora and fauna changed, a major environmental crisis broke out on Earth. Primitive communities were forced to look for new sources of food and adapt to new conditions. At this time, there was a transition of man from gathering and hunting to a productive economy - agriculture and cattle breeding, which gives scientists reason to talk about “ neolithic revolution", which became the beginning of the history of civilization of the ancient world.

With the cooling in many regions, the need arose to protect the body from the cold, which led to the appearance of clothing made from skins - the oldest material for making clothing among hunting tribes. Before the invention of weaving, clothing made from skins was the main clothing of primitive peoples.

Skins taken from animals killed by men while hunting were, as a rule, processed by women using special scrapers made of stone, bones, and shells. When processing the skin, they first scraped off the remaining meat and tendons from the inner surface of the skin, then removed the hair in a variety of ways, depending on the region. For example, the primitive peoples of Africa buried skins in the ground along with ash and leaves, in the Arctic - they soaked them in urine (skins were treated in the same way in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome), then the skin was tanned to give it strength, and also rolled, squeezed, pounded using special leather grinders to add elasticity.

The skin was tanned using decoctions of oak and willow bark; in Russia it was fermented - soaked in sour bread solutions; in Siberia and the Far East, fish bile, urine, liver and animal brains were rubbed into the skin. Nomadic pastoral peoples used fermented milk products, boiled animal liver, salt, and tea for this purpose. If the top grain layer was removed from fat-tanned leather, suede was obtained.

Animal skins are still the most important material for making clothing, but a great invention was the use of sheared (plucked, selected) animal hair. Both nomadic pastoral and sedentary agricultural peoples used wool. It is likely that the oldest method of processing wool was felting. Ancient Sumerians in the third millennium BC. wore felt clothes.

Many felt items (headdresses, clothing, blankets, carpets, shoes, cart decorations) were found in Scythian burials in the Pazyryk mounds of the Altai Mountains (VI-V centuries BC). Felt was obtained from sheep, goat, camel, yak, horsehair, etc. wool. Felting felt was especially widespread among the nomadic peoples of Eurasia, for whom it also served as a material for making dwellings (for example, yurts among the Kazakhs).

Various plant fibers were also used to make clothing. They were first used to weave baskets, canopies, nets, snares, ropes, and then a simple weaving of stems, bast fibers or fur strips turned into weaving. Weaving required a long, thin and uniform thread, twisted from various fibers.

During the Neolithic era, a great invention appeared - the spindle (the principle of its operation - twisting fibers - is preserved in modern spinning machines). Spinning was the occupation of women, who also made clothes. Therefore, among many peoples, the spindle was a symbol of a woman and her role as the mistress of the house.

2. A horizontal machine with two fixed bars, between which the base was tensioned. It was used to weave fabric of a strictly defined size (the ancient Egyptians had such looms).

3. Machine with rotating beam shafts.

Fabrics were made from banana bast, hemp and nettle fibers, flax, wool, silk - depending on the region, climate and traditions.

THE APPEARANCE AND FORMATION OF THE COSTUME

The history of costume is a reflection of the history of man and human society. The social structure of society, culture, worldview, level of technological development, trade relations between countries - all this, to one degree or another, was expressed in the costumes worn by people in a certain era.

A modern suit is the result of a long evolution, a certain result of creative discoveries and achievements, the fruit of the improved experience of many generations and at the same time the image of a person of our time, in which all the basic values of modern society are embodied.

A person’s appearance has always been, in a sense, a “work of art,” one of the ways of self-expression and self-awareness, determining the individual’s place in the world around him, an object of creativity, a form of expression of ideas about beauty. The most ancient types of “clothing” are painting and tattooing, which performed the same protective functions as clothing covering the body. This is evidenced by the fact that coloring and tattooing are common among those tribes that even in our time do without any other types of clothing.

The most basic: white (chalk, lime), black (charcoal, manganese ore), ocher, which made it possible to obtain shades from light yellow to orange and red. Body and face painting was a magical rite, often a sign of an adult male warrior and was first applied during the initiation rite (initiation into adult full members of the tribe).

The hairstyle and headdress were of particular importance, since it was believed that hair had magical powers, especially a woman’s long hair (therefore, many nations had a ban on women appearing in public with their heads uncovered). All manipulations with hair had a magical meaning, since life force is concentrated in hair. A change in hairstyle has always meant a change in social status, age and social and gender role. The headdress may have appeared as part of the ceremonial costume during rituals of rulers and priests. Among all peoples, the headdress was a sign of sacred dignity and high position.

The same ancient type of clothing as makeup is jewelry, which originally performed a magical function in the form of amulets and amulets.

At the same time, ancient jewelry served the function of indicating a person’s social status and an aesthetic function. Primitive jewelry was made from a wide variety of materials: animal and bird bones, human bones (among those tribes where cannibalism existed), animal fangs and tusks, bat teeth, bird beaks, shells, dried fruits and berries, feathers, corals, pearls, metals

PRIMITIVE COSTUME. GENERAL INFORMATION.

Along with housing, clothing arose as one of the main means of protection from various external influences. Some bourgeois scientists recognize this utilitarian reason for the origin of clothing, but many take idealistic positions and put forward as the main reasons a feeling of shame, aesthetic motivation (clothing supposedly arose from jewelry), religious and magic shows, etc.

Cloth- one of the oldest inventions of man. Already in the monuments of the late Paleolithic, stone scrapers and bone needles were discovered, which were used for processing and stitching skins. The materials for clothing, in addition to skins, were leaves, grass, and tree bark (for example, Tapa among the inhabitants of Oceania). Hunters and fishermen used fish skins, sea lion intestines and other sea animals, and bird skins.

Having learned the art of spinning and weaving in the Neolithic era, man initially used fibers from wild plants. The transition to cattle breeding and agriculture that occurred in the Neolithic made it possible to use the hair of domestic animals and fibers of cultivated plants (flax, hemp, cotton) for the manufacture of fabrics.

The simplest ancient shoes- sandals or a piece of animal skin wrapped around the foot. The latter is considered the prototype of the leather morshni (pistons) of the Slavs, the chuvyak of the Caucasian peoples, and the moccasins of the American Indians. Tree bark (in Eastern Europe) and wood (shoes among some peoples of Western Europe) were also used for shoes.

Clothing is usually adapted to the conditions of the geographical environment. In different climatic zones it differs in shape and material. The oldest clothing of the peoples of the tropical forest zone (in Africa, South America, etc.) is a loincloth, an apron, and a blanket on the shoulders. In moderately cold and arctic regions, clothing covers the entire body. The northern type of clothing is divided into moderate northern and clothing of the Far North (the latter is entirely fur).

The peoples of Siberia are characterized by two types of fur clothing: in the subpolar zone - blind, that is, without a cut, worn over the head (among the Eskimos, Chukchi, Nenets, etc.), in the taiga zone - swinging, having a cut in the front (among the Evenks, Yakuts, etc.). A unique set of clothing made of suede or tanned leather developed among the Indians of the forest belt of North America: women had a long shirt, men had a shirt and high leggings.

As society developed, the influence of differences in social and marital status on clothing increased. The clothing of men and women, girls and married women was differentiated; everyday, festive, wedding, funeral and other clothes arose. With the division of labor, various types of professional clothing appeared. Already in the early stages of history, clothing reflected ethnic characteristics (tribal, clan), and later national ones (which did not exclude local variations).

While satisfying the utilitarian needs of society, clothing at the same time expresses its aesthetic ideals. The artistic specificity of clothing as a type of decorative and applied art and artistic design is determined mainly by the fact that the object of creativity is the person himself. Forming a visual whole with it, clothing cannot be represented outside of its function.

The property of clothing as a purely personal item determined in its creation (modelling) the consideration of the proportional features of the figure, the age of a person, as well as private details of his appearance (for example, hair color, eyes). In the process of artistic design of clothing, these features can be emphasized or, conversely, softened.

This direct connection of clothing with a person gave rise to active participation, even co-authorship of the consumer in the approval and development of its forms. Being one of the means of embodying the ideal of a person of a particular era, clothing is made in accordance with its leading artistic style and its particular manifestation - fashion.

The combination of clothing components and items that complement it, made in the same style and artistically coordinated with each other, creates an ensemble called a costume. The main means of imagery in clothing is architectonics.

Numerous tribes that settled in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire (5th century) had a fundamentally different approach to clothing, which was not supposed to envelop the body, but reproduce its shape, giving a person the opportunity to move easily. Thus, among the peoples who came from the North and East, the main parts of clothing were coarsely woven trousers and a shirt. On their basis, such a type of clothing as tights developed, which occupied the main place in European costume for several centuries.