Climate, Clothing, and Agriculture in Prehistory

Synopsis

Clothing Was Crucial In Human Evolution, And Having To Cope With Climate Change Was As True In Prehistory As It Is Today. In Climate, Clothing, And Agriculture In Prehistory, Ian Gilligan Offers The First Complete Account Of The Development Of Clothing As A Response To Cold Exposure During The Ice Ages. He Explores How And When Clothes Were Invented, Noting That The Thermal Motive Alone Is Tenable In View Of The Naked Condition Of Humans. His Account Shows That There Is Considerably More Archaeological Evidence For Palaeolithic Clothes Than Is Generally Appreciated. Moreover, Gilligan Posits, Clothing Played A Leading Role In Major Technological Innovations. He Demonstrates That Fibre Production And The Advent Of Woven Fabrics, Developed In Response To Global Warming, Were Pivotal To The Origins Of Agriculture. Drawing Together Evidence From Many Disciplines, Climate Clothing, And Agriculture In Prehistory Is Written In A Clear And Engaging Style, And Is Illustrated With Nearly 100 Images--,For Someone Who Has No Interest In Clothes At A Personal Level And Virtually No Knowledge Of Fashion, It Is Strange That I Had To Write A Book About Clothing. There Are Two Reasons Why This Happened. First, My Real Motivation Is Trying To Understand How Humans Came To Be The Most Unusual Species On This Planet. A Long Time Ago, In High School I Was Reading The Novel Lord Of The Flies By William Golding When Something Struck Me About That Allegorical Tale. The Fate Of The Boys Marooned On A Tropical Island During A Nuclear Holocaust Rang True, But I Was Bothered By Something That Did Not Seem To Make Sense. If We Are Products Of Evolution, A Tendency Towards Self-destruction Is An Unlikely Outcome Of Our Evolutionary Inheritance. I Think Golding, Like Many Others, Was Inclined To Put It Down To A Conflict Between Our Civilized State And Our Animal Nature--