It’s easy to assume people have always covered up because nudity is shameful. The evidence tells a different story. Humans spent hundreds of thousands of years naked, and when we did start wearing clothes, the main reason seems to have been keeping warm.
1. Born naked
Unlike other apes, humans are almost hairless. Genetic studies suggest our ancestors lost most of their body hair and developed dark, sun-protective skin by around 1.2 million years ago. For a very long time after that, our skin was all we wore. It suited life in the African heat, where sweating through bare skin is a good way to stay cool.
2. The first clothes
Clothes rarely survive in the ground, so scientists piece together their history from clever clues. One of the best comes from lice. Clothing lice live in fabric rather than hair, so they can only have evolved once people wore clothes. A 2011 genetic study found they split from head lice at least 83,000 and possibly as long as 170,000 years ago.
- 1.2m years agoOur ancestors have lost most of their body hair and have dark skin to protect against the sun.
- 170,000–83,000 years agoClothing lice split from head lice, a sign that people had started wearing clothes.
- 120,000–90,000 years agoBone tools in a Moroccan cave were used to scrape hides, perhaps for clothing.
- About 50,000 years agoAn eyed bone needle in Denisova Cave, Siberia, suggests stitched clothing.
- About 30,000 years agoSpun and dyed flax fibres in Dzudzuana Cave, Georgia.
These dates are estimates, and some are debated. The Denisova needle’s age comes from its announcement rather than a full dating study, and some experts question whether the Dzudzuana fibres are flax.
3. Warmth, not shame
Why start? The timing points to the weather. As modern humans spread into colder places during the ice ages, bare skin was no longer enough. The archaeologist Ian Gilligan argues that keeping warm is reason enough on its own to explain the first clothes. In his account, simple draped hides came first, followed by fitted, layered garments in the coldest periods. Only later did clothes take on other jobs: decoration, and signalling who you were.
The same logic applies in hot places. Covering up protects skin from strong sun, thorns and insects. Clothing, in other words, started as practical kit.
4. Where modesty came in
So where does modesty fit in? Over a century ago, scholars such as Edvard Westermarck argued that shame about nudity is “not the cause but the result” of covering the body: once people got used to wearing clothes, being without them started to feel strange. Others think clothing began partly as decoration, to attract attention rather than avoid it. The debate isn’t settled, but very few experts now think shame was the starting point.
History backs this up. Ideas about which parts of the body should be covered have varied enormously from one culture to another. Aboriginal Tasmanians lived in a cold climate wearing little more than skin cloaks. And in ancient Greece, Olympic athletes competed completely naked, in front of crowds.
5. What it means for us
None of this means clothes are bad. They keep us warm, dry and protected, and that’s exactly what they were invented for. But it does mean the idea that the human body is something shameful is learned, not natural. On a warm day, on a quiet beach, there’s no practical reason to wear anything at all.
That’s the heart of naturism: clothes when they’re useful, and none when they’re not. If you’d like to try it, start with our first-timer’s guide.