Until 170,000 years ago, humans hung around Africa in their birthday suits.
Then, they put on some clothes and got itchy.
David Reed, associate curator of mammals for the Florida Museum of Natural History, and his team of researchers have calculated when humans started wearing clothes by studying the lice that lived on them.
The research, published in January’s “Molecular Biology and Evolution” and funded in part by a $935,000 award from the National Science Foundation, is open to the public on the Oxford Journal’s website, mbe.oxfordjournals.org.
The research states that once humans started wearing clothes, body lice, also called clothing lice, started to appear. The clothing decayed over the years, but the lice multiplied.
Melissa Toups, co-author of the study and a former UF grad student, said being able to use lice to find out information that archaeology couldn’t find was cool.
“Using the parasites was pretty innovative,” she said.
Just as humans and chimpanzees once shared a common ancestor, Reed said, head lice and body lice once shared a common ancestor as well. Figuring out when they split into two groups was the key to figuring out when humans clothed themselves.
Instead of putting on clothing to keep warm, the research shows that humans started wearing clothing while they were in sunny Africa. Reed said the clothing might have been decorative, such as beaded belts.
When humans emigrated out of Africa and traveled to other parts of the world, the lice went with them.
Reed said his next step is trying to trace the lice’s travels from Europe and Asia to the Americas to find out exactly when humans came to the Americas.
“We think the lice will have a story to tell,” he said.
