NOt A StitCH

Muse, Jan 2004

When did humans first put on clothes? It's hard to tell because cloth rots quickly. A recent article in the journal Current Biology suggests a new way to find out. When people began to wear clothes, they created a new habitat for lice in the warm folds of cloth next to their skin. DNA studies show body lice arose from head lice about 70,000 years ago.

Perhaps that's when people got dressed, the scientists proposed. But other scientists aren't happy. It's too recent a date, they say. It would mean Neanderthals shivered in their cold caves without benefit of a bearskin. According to them, this dating system is a "lousy" idea. (Muse not responsible for bad puns.)