I’ve realised over the last little while that I haven’t heard of any time or place where it was normal for adult humans to walk around in the nude. I was wondering if we as a species feel an instinctual need to wear clothes (which would be sort of strange since no other species has anything remotely close to this). If there are any anthropologists reading this, has there ever been a time or place recorded when humans didn’t wear some sort of covering? I’ve heard that dating a species of lice who reside on humans (who rely upon our clothing to survive, since our hair isn’t abundant) has given us a date of aroun 100000 years ago for the apearance of clothes. Has every culture since that time felt the need to clothe themselves?
There are some cultures in Africa, South America, or the Pacific where it’s normal for adults to be nude. Does nude include things such as a string aroung the was, a penis sheath, or a small leaf wrapped aroung the penis?
nah, I mean completely nude; not a thread. It’s interesting that the people mentioned would still wear something around their waist, even if it doesn’t actually cover anything.
The Lucayan Indians of the Bahamas went completely naked when they were encountered by Columbus. I believe this was true on some other islands of the Antilles, as well as in some groups of Amazonia. Most Australian aboriginal groups went naked, aside from ornaments.
I think the OP fails to make a distinction between ornaments and decoration as opposed to real “clothing,” worn for either protection or to conceal taboo parts of the body, usually sexual. Ornaments may well have preceded clothing; “clothing” of sorts may have first developed as a status symbol rather than for protection or modesty.
In many cultures where men traditionaly go nude it’s still considered embarrassing for them to get an erection in public so various methods are employed to prevent/conceal them.
And how bout this? A penis sheath could hardly be described as “clothing”, and it’s hardly modest (given that the effect is to make it look like you have a two-foot-long brightly colored, feathered, beaded, boner. But among the (Highland New Guinea, maybe?) cultures who wear them, men are still bound by rules of modesty not to appear in public without them.
Naked, not nude. 
(Brought to you by the SDMB Society for Pedantic Smartasses.)
Hard to say, but it seems unlikely. We do have an instinctive need to use tools, and belts are an extremely functional tool. There are any number of peoples who have worn no clothing aside from a belt that they used to hang objects from.
I agree with Colibri, if you want to include belts you are going to have a hell of a problem separating out ‘real’ clothes from decorations and tools.
But that isn’t true. Any number of species cover themselves with inorganic material for decoration or as a tool or for protection. Hermit crabs, caddic flies, pigs, elephants and lacewings to name just a few OTTOMH. Humans are not in any way unusual in having an instinctive urge to cover ourselves for protection, decoration or utility.
I have to question the reasoning here. If your definition of clothing is nothing more than a rope belt or a penis gourd then I have a hard time believing that such adornments would make any difference to lice. Or to put it another way, if people over 100, 000 years ago were wearing rope belts and penis gourds would we have any evidence of it?
Now if you’re asking whether there were people who wore so few clothing that they had no impact on bodylice after that date then the answer is ‘sure’. The use of clothing for modesty seems to have been linked very closely with the spread of agriculture, and in general non-agricultural people were effectively naked whenever that was practical.
Alright, here’s a bit of a clarification:
I’m talking about clothing that serves no practical function. Wearing clothes for protection makes sense and can be seen in other places throughout the animal kingdom. I reffering more to the penis sheaths and waist bands rather than parkas. Does anybody know of a time or place where humans didn’t feel the need to wear anything at all?
I didn’t think penis sheaths were non-functional; do they not serve (at least partly) to keep the penis up and out of harm’s way?
And yes, such places exist now in the modern world; they’re variously called naturist colonies, nudist beaches etc.
Granted, modern naturism/nudism is arguably a reaction to prevailing taboos, so I’m guessing you might rule it out.
This probably doesn’t count as a cite, but I recall the head of my anthropolgy department in college saying that every human culture has some form of clothing. Some of them may strain the definition of what we would call clothing, but they all have their own version of it.
He did his Phd work among the Dani of New Guinea, who wear penis gourds like this guy (note: link leads to picture of guy with gourd on his penis). It may not look like much to us, but to the Dani it’s the difference between clothed and naked. My professor told a story about two German guys (diplomats, maybe) who viewed their trip to New Guinea as an opportunity to “get back to nature” and walked around nude all over the place. The Dani were offended as hell, and basically told the local officials “tell those two idiots to put a gourd on it or you’re going to get them back in a basket.” The local officials were afraid of offending them, so the message was not passed on. Guess what happened.
If your defintion of clothing is that it serves no practical function then there have been dozens of such cultures. In fact I suspect that the vast majority of human cultures have worn no clothing by that standard. As I said erlaier, the idea of wearing clothes for modesty seems to be largely restricted to agricultural societies.
The most extreme example would be the Tasmanain Aborigines who had no clothing and no ability to make clothing. Belts were worn for the purpose of hanging tools from, but aside from that not a single stitch of clothing was worn.
There are numerous other cultures, including most mainland Aboriginal groups, that have been and in some cases remain naked if by naked you mean thay only wear clothing for utilitarian reasons. Most of those groups made and used clothing, but only dor protection or ornamentaion, not for modesty. When encountered in summer such people usually wore not a single stitch of clothing.
In short there is nothing unusual about human groups not wearing clothes. The unusual state seems to be people wearing clothes.
The part I find intrigueing is that humans would wear clothes, even when they don’t have to. The fact that humans wear clothes to protect themselves from the elements holds no mystery and is therefore pretty uninteresting. What I find curious, is that most human cultures seem to wear some sort of clothing, even when they don’t really need to.
I’m not sure that’s true. Do you have any evidence?
As I said earlier, my reading leads me to conclude that the wearing of useless clothing seems to be almost entirely restricted to agricultural groups. In contrast hunter-gatherer groups seem to have been almost universally happy to walk around stark naked. And of course HG societies have comprised the vast majority of human cultures.
So I’m not willing to accept that most human cultures wear clothing when there is no need. Even if we can find evidence that there will stillbe a iszable minority that don’t.
I have to question the historical record, here… Does that mean that they were truly completely naked, or that, by the cultural mores of Columbus and his crew, they would be considered completely naked? I believe that in one of Jules Verne’s books, a character “strips naked” before swimming, but still has enough garments to have pockets, and in one of James Fenimore Cooper’s books, Chingachgook is described as “naked” when wearing a loincloth, breeches, a beaded breastplate, and a blanket. Keeping that in mind, it seems quite plausible that the Lucayans were wearing loincloths, or penis gourds, or something equivalent, but that Columbus would have described them as naked.
What? WHAT!
Oh my God - you CANNOT end a story like that.
Just so people know what the bodylice reference was all about:
Citing: Kittler, R., Kayser, M. Stoneking, M. Molecular evolution of Pediculus humanus and the origin of clothing. Current Biology, 13, 1414 - 1417, (2003).
From Columbus’s original letter on the discovery
Ok, not all of them went completely naked, but I think this indicates pretty clearly than most people in the West Indies did. By “'this island” he is referring to Hispaniola, which he reached after the Bahamas. The early Spanish explorers were a good deal less prudish than nineteenth-century writers, and usually said what they meant.
Ornaments, in the form of beads, seem to go back 70,000 years in Africa (although the dating is disputed). If you want to define necklaces or arm bands as “clothing,” then it goes back a long time.
OK, I guess if he specifically said that some of them wear “a leaf”, as opposed to the others who are naked, that’s good enough to convince me. Interesting, though, that some of them did still wear something… Is any reason known or suggested for that? Menstrual hygeine, perhaps? It’s also interesting that they had cotton cloth (or something which would resemble it to Columbus’ eyes), if they were putting it to so little use.