I Gave Myself a Mesolithic Makeover (10,000-Year-Old Fashion)

For the past six months I've been quietly learning prehistoric textile skills. I didn't realize I would but I completely fell in love with prehistory. What we call prehistory spans a significant amount of time and there's so little that we know about many of the periods in prehistory compared with more modern history that is. I've been enjoying the bronze and iron ages but I find these stone age so humbling. The way everyday humans were so intelligent, a type of intelligence that I can't even begin to describe. How they created something out of just the raw materials around them, how they turned flint into tools, how they turned fiber into cordage, how they formed and built and advanced entire communities, how they made art and expressed their creativity, and how they laid the foundations for everything that exists in our lives today. I find the Mesolithic especially fascinating. This is typically said to be from 15,000 to 5,000 years ago in western Europe at least and it's a transitionary point between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. In the Mesolithic you still see a trend towards hunting and gathering as well as the use of smaller stone tools called microliths and the climate during this time continues warming, moving away from the ice age. Eventually the Mesolithic shifts into the earliest days of agriculture or the Neolithic which is when humans begin settling into agrarian communities and practicing animal husbandry. People start cultivating crops and raising animals so I see the Mesolithic as the last moments before this change in western Europe which feels very significant to me somehow. I love being able to explore the moments right before everything takes a different course. It should be said that by the Neolithic not everybody was settling into agrarian societies. There were still hunter-gatherer populations around the world just like there are today. It's just that the raising of animals and agriculture became a prevalent way of life in the Neolithic. The main thing about Mesolithic textiles is we don't have much in terms of material or garment finds. Because of that there's a lot of room for interpretation. We can turn towards sources such as cave paintings, figurines, and the less decomposable remnants such as decorative shells on garments and other references as clues for how best to interpret Mesolithic clothing. As a reminder I am not an archaeologist nor a historian, in this case a prehistorian, and exploring this period is a fairly recent interest of mine. I only have six months of experience so I may be missing evidence. I'm also very open to learning more so if you know of additional finds from Mesolithic Europe that are interesting feel free to share them in the comments as I'm very curious to see them. Oftentimes people in the past, especially the further back we go, are portrayed as unintelligent. With regards to Stone Age I sometimes see this being done in media with the trope of the caveman or cavewoman. The deeper I dig into the Stone Age the more I see this couldn't be further from the truth. Prehistoric humans were absolute geniuses. There's this tool I've been using to shave down a bone to make it into an awl called a burin and it's basically a little flint flake with a little angular notch in it. This one was very quickly made by my friend Zalman who is probably one of just look how beautiful his work is. The fact that prehistoric humans were able to not only create tools like this but also to come up with the idea in the first place is absolutely profound and this is just one example. Just in the Mesolithic alone there are incredible tools with awls, bone needles, flint knives, flint drills, just to name a few. Humans have always taken great care to make things in their lives beautiful all throughout history and this is also true in Mesolithic. You see this in the decorations on late Mesolithic pottery or the careful weaving of Mesolithic basketry. You can also see this in grave finds such as this one from France where the skeletons of two women are wearing carefully constructed jewelry. Contrary to common belief prehistoric humans didn't just slap some skins and furs on themselves and call it a day. They most likely sewed because we find bone needles and awls. They focused on decorating their garments which we can see exemplified in finds such as the decorated garments discovered in Blazac, Serbia. Therefore I knew it wouldn't be far-fetched to go a little extra with my own outfit and add in some more decorative elements. We can also look to textile evidence in the Neolithic to help us better understand the Mesolithic. Whilst textiles probably looked pretty different at this point due to the fact that linen and nettle start being processed and woven on looms, which isn't really the case in the Mesolithic yet from what we know, people in the Neolithic are most likely still also wearing animal skins like in the Mesolithic as well as soft fiber garments such as twined skirts or cloaks which you also get in the Mesolithic. One such example is of Ötzi the Iceman, a very popular and phenomenal Neolithic find that offers us some evidence to what garments may have maybe looked like at this point. As I've been doing this reconstruction I've been keeping in mind that we really know so little about Mesolithic textiles but that doesn't mean that I can't interpret the evidence that we do have and still produce something beautiful. My mind is wide open and even deeply excited for the future evidence that we will find for textiles in the Mesolithic and I can't wait to see how my ideas surrounding Mesolithic clothing might change as more evidence is discovered. For now however this is the direction that I intend to go for for my own reconstruction and Mesolithic makeover and this is just in this moment of time. In the future I might realize that the direction I went in is totally not the direction that is accurate because we learned new evidence. I don't really know but this is what I'm doing for now. For the making of my Mesolithic clothing I worked very intuitively and didn't even create any patterns. That's because deerskin, which is the material I'm working with primarily, each hide is unique and it sort of tells you what it wants to be made into not the other way around. My whole outfit consists of four different garments, one ended up being a fitted bodice and a skirt set, then a goat fur vest for warmth, and finally an over apron dress type of garment which I realized I really needed after trying out some stone age brain tanning one day. I'm going to start by explaining the vest construction but I didn't actually make the garments in this order in case you notice my tools changing, this is just how I'd like to talk about them. And also as a note for the animal materials in this video, everything I'm using is either secondhand gifted to me or seconds, as in skins and furs that would have otherwise been thrown away. I don't support the cruel and exploitative practices of the commercial fur trade. For the over apron dress my material is a deerskin that is heavier weight as some of the grain was left on the skin meaning it's very durable. Some other deerskin is processed with the grain removed so it ends up being a lot more drapey and soft, you'll see what I mean later on. For this I cut out two vaguely trapezoid shapes and I used an awl to poke holes where the stitching would be at the side seams and shoulders. Using an awl to make holes and then utilizing your cord or sinew as a needle in and of itself is likely a common way that clothing would have been made because you actually have a lot more precise control with an awl than a bone needle I found. A lot of bone needles from the mesolithic aren't super fine so they leave behind rather large holes so I've just found this awl method to be the easiest. And a fun fact, the awl is one of the earliest known tools. It dates back to at least the paleolithic. At first for this project I was using a metal awl but eventually I was able to make a bone awl from a small horse bone. It works even better than a metal one in my opinion and I'm not even done refining it yet. I stitched the garment with some deerskin strips or cord. I made this by cutting some deerskin with a flint knife and it's surprisingly hard to cut these skins in a straight line with a flint knife but I'm certain if I was doing this from the time I was a child, which is likely the case for mesolithic humans, I would probably get very good at this skill by my late 20s. For the shoulders I worked a whip stitch and for the sides I decided to go with a running stitch. I sandwiched in an additional strip of deerskin for extra durability. When I'm experimenting or trying to recreate old ways of doing things the biggest challenge isn't just learning a single skill, it's realizing that every skill depends on 10 others. To spin wool you first need to know how to raise sheep and how to build a spindle. To make ink you might need to know how to identify the right trees. Every simple task is the tip of a massive iceberg of knowledge and diving into the making of prehistoric textiles has taught me this more than anything and it has been a deeply humbling exploration. It makes you wonder how people managed to build entire societies with nothing but was around them. I think about prehistoric people and how they made the first strand of cordage or how they figured out to sew with sinew and that's why I was so genuinely excited when I came across this. This is the book How to Rebuild Civilization from Hungry Minds and they are the sponsor of this video. The book feels like a missing manual for so many projects. It's described as a masterpiece blending hand-drawn illustrations and profound knowledge, exceeding the ordinary book. It's essentially an encyclopedia that skims the surface on so many important topics many of which we have forgotten but are still very important to remember. Some of my favorites are how to make fire and how to find water, the making of rubber, how to make glue from the bones and sinews of animals, the process of beekeeping, how to build simple housing, and so many more. The topics in the book are the foundational stuff, the knowledge that comes before the craft, but the artistry here goes far beyond the drawings. The book itself is an incredible object. Honestly it's more of an art piece than just a reading experience and this entire project was exclusively human made showcasing the beauty of handcrafted artistry and you can feel that integrity when you hold it. The construction is just exceptional. The book has a thick and durable embossed cover that is fully capable of lasting multiple generations and I truly agree with this just by feeling its quality. This is an heirloom object made to be explored, shared, and preserved and it's a perfect gift for any book lover with a curious mind and an appreciation of true craftsmanship. If you want to see more I've left a link for you down below and use my code BIRCHWOOD for 10% off only until August 19th. Thank you so much to Hungry Minds and the book for sponsoring this video and now let's go back to making more Mesolithic clothing. The next garments I want to talk about are my deerskin skirt and bodice set. These are both made from one hide of very soft deerskin where the grain was removed and I just sort of draped it over me to see what I could do which I of course forgot to film and then I started cutting the material. I didn't have a sharp enough flint knife at this point because my chert knife isn't that sharp so I used an exacto knife instead. I wanted the bodice to be very supportive so I came up with an idea to basically have it be side lacing. I must admit I took inspiration from medieval kirtles a little bit for this part. So essentially I've produced a feasible Stone Age bra because it's extremely supportive and all of these materials would have been available in the Mesolithic. Since we don't know exactly what Mesolithic people wore the main piece of evidence I'm using for this two-piece set is the depiction of clothing in this cave painting found in Catalonia, Spain called the Dancers of Kogol where the individuals depicted can be seen wearing skirts or dresses dancing around someone with a rather large phallus which I've unfortunately had to cover up with a little birch leaf as videos here sometimes get demonetized even for nudity depicted in art and there isn't actually another human on the other side validating as to whether or not this is the case so it's extremely hard to even appeal it when this happens. It's ridiculous I know but if you'd like to see the original version it's linked in the description box and you can see what I mean. It's a very beautiful cave painting. This painting is also helpful because it shows us some of the animals that were known to Mesolithic people including some deer, what looks to be a goat, perhaps some type of wild boar and maybe an auroch or wild ox. For the bodice I stitched up one side with sinew and then created a series of awl holes at the other side where I ran lacing through it. Originally I used sinew for the lacing but it would come undone a lot so I eventually changed it to hemp cord which held much better. I also attached some straps made of braided hemp cord at the top so that way it would help the bodice hold in place. It was just in case as deerskin has a tendency to stretch out a little over time and wear. For the skirt I had to do a little bit of piecing and I sewed on an additional scrap of deerskin for a little more coverage. I also had to fix a hole in the skin at the back with some sinew that I whip stitched. I also felt like the skirt needed some decoration as it felt a little bit too plain so I made a bunch of awl holes at the hem, ran some cordage through them, and then braided about 80 different bunches of hemp strands together to create this fringe. From what I've been able to dig up there isn't direct evidence of braiding being done in the Mesolithic but it's rather intuitive and in the Neolithic you get a basketry technique called the Neolithic braid. You also begin to see spraying in the Neolithic and spraying may be even older and we just haven't found evidence yet. Spraying is technically a warp-led braiding technique so I don't think it's that far-fetched to theorize that Mesolithic humans also knew how to braid. The final garment was a fur vest for warmth. I decided my easiest option would be to go with goat furs as there's even more evidence for goats existing during the Mesolithic other than just the Dancers of Kogel cave painting. There's a cave painting in the spider caves of Valencia depicting a goat so I found a couple of hides that are byproducts of the meat industry and would have otherwise been discarded. These were tanned using modern methods which is why you get this slightly blue shade at the underside. I'm not sure which method was used but it's something that you don't see when you're brain tanning a garment. I cut the part of the fur where the neck was with a flint and shaped the garment's neckline a little bit. Then I fastened the shoulders together with strips of deerskin cord. The construction of the garment was honestly that simple as the hides themselves create intrigue for the garment with their different shapes and the way the hair falls off of the hide. Finally it was time for a bunch of accessories. This is where things got really fun. I learned how to make coiled basketry recently so I made this little basket from some wild foraged grasses for the base material and for the sewing material I used raffia which isn't historically accurate for western Europe but raffia is often used in prehistoric reenactment as an alternative to lime bast which would be more accurate because lime bast is actually not the easiest to find in continental Europe now and so it's kind of a precious resource for people. On the other hand raffia is super easy to find everywhere even in basic craft stores so it makes for an excellent alternative to lime bast. I also plied two pieces of hemp cord together using a prehistoric cordage making technique and created a little strap to turn the basket into a small purse. This would actually be perfect for foraging little things like berries. For jewelry my friend Jan very kindly gifted me this piece of raw amber and I used a flint drill to carefully make a hole in the material. After about 45 minutes of effort I broke through to the other side. Yay I finally got through. Everything takes so much time in the stone age. I got a little overzealous at the end and thought I could create a larger opening from the other side and this ended up cracking my amber completely. It broke. Just as I was about to give up I realized all was not lost as I took a little bit of most definitely prehistoric super glue and I ended up being able to glue the amber pieces back together. A little bit of a modern fix but hey they did technically have glue in prehistory it maybe just wasn't as strong as super glue. I'm actually not completely sure how strong it was as I've never worked with prehistoric birch tar or animal sinew glue before. Maybe that's something for me to experiment with in the future. I applied some more cordage and threaded on the now fixed piece of amber. Jan also very kindly let me borrow this beautiful jade stone bracelet that he made with stones sourced from the alps. It's based off of neolithic armband finds so they're later than the mesolithic but it was simply too beautiful not to share in this video and his craftsmanship on this piece is absolutely stunning. Another friend gifted me this necklace made of bone beads which I layered with the amber. I traded another friend for this beautiful fish skin purse that she made and I purchased this lime bast twined knife sheath from another person and set my shirt knife into it so I could wear it on my hip at a deerskin leather belt. I also had a little piece of white rabbit fur that I attached to some cord and made into a little fluffy decoration. My mesolithic storyline behind this is that maybe I traded with an arctic hair hunter and was able to get this cute little piece of white hair fur that I'm now displaying proudly because it would be quite rare if you're not living in the arctic to have something like this and it would therefore be very fancy. I also had the neck pieces left over from the goat furs so I had the idea to make them into cute little leg covers by threading them through with some leather straps as well as cordage. These didn't hold super well so I'll need to come up with a better solution but they did turn out really lovely. And the final component for this whole look, because I know it's kind of a lot, is some simple shoes that I made. I used the same pattern as the iron age shoes I tried making a while back but this time from a more durable deerskin and I ran a hemp cord through all the tabs to get them to stay. After I made all the deerskin garments I spent quite a few days wearing them including the shoes so that way they could stretch and form to my body as this often takes time. Now that I had all my pieces completed gathered and worn in I was ready for the makeover. For Mesolithic makeup we don't have direct evidence of course as skin with makeup on it typically doesn't survive 10,000 years of decomposition, but there is evidence even back in the Paleolithic of red ochre. There's a find from Italy called the Young Prince which dates back to about 23,500 years ago and the body was found lying on a layer of red ochre. So we can infer that people were likely using ochre for things other than just cave paintings. They also found the Young Prince wearing a hat completely covered in shells which again shows the care that prehistoric humans put into the construction of their garments and how much work and effort they placed into decorating them. Some bottles potentially used for cosmetics have also been unearthed in Slovenia and these are about 6,000 years old so that falls into the last part of the Mesolithic depending on how we classify it and who you ask I guess. In these bottles they found traces of ceracite which contains lead and perhaps may have been used for some sort of white lead face powder. And many of the bottles were found with long stone tools nearby meaning that this may have been used as some sort of extraction tool to be able to apply the powder. And in these bottles they also found ingredients like beeswax and animal fat. So all of this was already giving me ideas for what I wanted to do with my own makeup. I decided to go with yellow ochre, red ochre, and charcoal as my pigments. I originally was going to just mix them with pure beeswax which definitely did not work out. There's some evidence of honey harvesting in the Mesolithic potentially even beekeeping as well. In the Neolithic there already seems to be quite strong evidence that they probably practiced an early form of beekeeping in Europe. But there's also a Mesolithic depiction of honey gathering found in these spider caves in Valencia Spain on a cave painting called the which dates back to about 8,000 years ago. This painting doesn't necessarily mean that they were full-on beekeeping but at least that they were probably able to extract honey. Since using only the beeswax didn't work out for me I needed to add some animal fat. Since I wasn't expecting the beeswax not to work out I didn't really have any tallow which is what probably would have been used in Mesolithic times. So instead I used butter. Butter wasn't made from what we know until the but it is quite similar to tallow so I decided that this would be the best option for my circumstances. I made one mixture of red ochre, one of yellow ochre, and one of charcoal and I was ready to do my hair and makeup. I'm going to try to see if I can actually make my hair into cordage. I had this idea all of a sudden like okay maybe if it doesn't work out I can braid it but what if I tried to separate my hair into two strands and then twist it like I would with cordage. Let's take a look and see. How would I even do this? I suppose I'd have to make it off to the side here. I have to think. Done. Nope that's not gonna work. Okay let's try this again. It's really hard to get my brain to work like this. Okay there and then twist there and twist there and twist. Will that work? Ah it kind of works. You can see it being like little bits of cordage. It looks really pretty but yeah it's not really tight enough at the top. Let's see if I can figure it out here. It would be much easier I feel like to do this for someone else not for myself. Oh look how pretty that is. Oh my gosh it's like a little piece of cordage. Oh that is beautiful. That is so nice. Okay let's see if I tie it off if it will stay or not. I'm tying it with a piece of cordage I applied. It does stay. Wow that's exciting. I didn't realize I could make cordage with my hair but that's cool. All right there's my hair cordage. Let's see if it stays or not over time. So now for my makeup I've got some red ochre and I did test it earlier and it looked really cool. So I'm going to just take a little bit on my hand and I'll show you all what it looks like. You can see it's super pigmented. It's amazing actually you can get this kind of color out of it. I'm just going to start applying it on my face. Now I'm working from my modern bias so I'm sort of applying it in the way that I would my makeup. Who knows if they actually did this in prehistory in the Mesolithic we don't really know. But we know that they had access to red ochre so this could be feasible. And perhaps as well they did more extreme face painting with the ochres. Again we don't really know but I sort of want to go for a more natural everyday kind of look. Mesolithic look. I'm also going to put a little bit on my eyelids. Oops not under my eye though. Maybe a little bit on my chin. So here's what I have so far and you can see how pigmented it is. It's really pigmented. It looks super cool and I'm going to apply a bit to my lips as well. The formula that I made is very smooth and I would totally wear this as my usual makeup. I'm going to bring it a little bit to my temples as well. Red ochre is done. I'm going to now get this off of my hand so I don't end up with it all over my dress. Next I'm going to work with a little bit of yellow ochre and I've not tried this one yet so I don't know how pigmented it is. And it's definitely not as pigmented as the red one. I did put a lot less ochre. Kind of has like a slight yellow sheen to it. Almost like a yellow tinted lip balm. I'll show you. You can see the yellow here. It's not nearly as pigmented. In fact it's barely pigmented at all. Get really close to the camera here. I'm just going to apply a little bit onto my eyelids here. Create like a little extra shadow just a touch to my lips. Ow. Get my foot on a vacuum cleaner. My house is a mess right now. Okay and then finally we've got the little charcoal mixture which is decently pigmented I think. It's a bit coarse. It's not that pigmented. I was really guessing with all of these formulas so the red ended up being very pigmented because I really added a lot to it but the black and yellow not as much but that's okay. This is all one big experiment. I don't think there is a right or wrong way to do any of this. I'm going to just take a little bit on a stick and see if I can just create a little bit of black eyeshadow or maybe even a liner. All right that looks pretty cool. It's amazing what you can get just with natural pigments and a bit of butter or animal fat and a bit of beeswax. So this is my final makeup look. Now let's go get dressed and I'll see you all in the Mesolithic.