How humans have used clothing as a tool for nonverbal communication throughout history.
By Anne Kuckertz
They may have seemed innocuous to the casual viewer. Just some grimy shells in a Moroccan cave. But to researchers they were groundbreaking. They altered the very timeline of human cognition.
It was thirty-three of these such shells that clued anthropologists at the University of Arizona into a novel idea: that humans have used clothes as a means for nonverbal communication for much longer than was previously thought.
The sea snail shells found near the west coast of Morocco were between 142,000 and 150,000 years old. They had human made holes in their center, suggesting they were altered to be placed on string that our early ancestors could wear as necklaces or attached to the clothes.
Anthropologists believe that these handmade shell necklaces were used to communicate something about the individual who wore them. Maybe they were to identify them as a part of a certain social group amongst a growing population in North Africa. Or perhaps as resources became scarcer in the dry climate of the time, there was a need to identify and protect a member of one’s own tribe. Either way, we now know that clothing (or in the case of the shell beads, clothing accessories) have been used to convey social information for hundreds of thousands of years.
Throughout history we see examples of this nonverbal communication. Royalty in ancient Rome wore robes dyed purple using snail secretions. Although purple is a lovely color, to be sure, that’s not why it was popular amongst the roman upper class. It was expensive and labor intensive to make. It took around 12,000 snails to make just 1.4 grams of dye. That amount of dye was only enough to color the trim of one garment. By wearing a robe, even with just purple accents, a person told the world, without speaking, hey, I belong to a group that is rich and powerful, don’t mess with me.
Another, more recent, historical form of nonverbal communication is the tartan worn by Scottish Highlanders. Tartan is a checked pattern similar to plaid that has been used in Scottish dress since at least the 1400s. Starting in the 1700s, Scottish warriors began wearing tartan designs specific to their clan. This provided a similar function to that of the Moroccan shells. It communicated quickly what group a person belonged too. This would give a passerby instant information on a person’s loyalties and perhaps whether that person could be trusted based off current clan relations. It is like if every state in the US had a designated t shirt that everyone wore to let everyone else know they’re from the Land of Lincoln or the Golden State (although, unlike the US the clan system had no central authority.)
Although state related clothing definitely exists, (stores in airports very much depend on it) today clothing is a communication tool for an array of messages. For one, we use fashion as an expression of our identity. As was the case with the roman purple, celebrities and the wealthy today may wear red bottom heels or diamond encrusted watches to communicate their wealth to outside viewers. And similarly to prehistoric humans and Scottish warriors, we might wear our favorite sports team’s apparel to let everyone know where our loyalty lies.
In the context of clothing, there are two types of identities we are trying to display. Personal and social. Personal identity is defined by a person’s goals, abilities, and beliefs. This might include gender or sexual identity. For example, one might adorn rainbow garb to communicate that they are LGBTQ+. On the flip side, social identity displays a belonging to a certain group. This might include ethnicity, nationality, occupation, or beliefs. So, one might see a person’s police uniform and instantly know their level authority. Or a politician may wear an American flag pin to let everyone know that they are in government.
But, when it comes to beliefs, clothing can be a tool for social change as well. The Black Lives Matter movement represents itself using an iconic black shirt with the slogan written in white lettering. By wearing BLM merchandise, a person communicates to the rest of the world their desire to right racial injustices. Another group that uses clothing to communicate beliefs is the Pussyhat Project. This group was formed in response to Former President Trump’s infamous “grab them by the pussy” comment. And is worn by women’s rights activists to show that they support the project’s message.
For 142,000 years humans have used clothing to communicate nonverbally. Whether that be a message of social status, membership of a particular group, or aspects of one’s own identity, everyday when we decide what to wear, we decide what we want to tell the world about ourselves.
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