I Made Stone Age Clothes from Deer and Sheep Skins

Welcome back to the Stone Age Workshop series. In this episode I will make a full set of lightweight, breathable buckskin clothes and a pair of shoes sewn together using deer sinew in preparation for my attempt to cross the Irish Sea in a DIY Stone Age boat. I'll be making the clothes and shoes from the deer and sheep skins that I tanned using fat, smoke and tree bark in the last episode. The aim is to create a simple, practical outfit, warm and hard-wearing enough to get me through the winter, yet light and adaptable for summer weather and potentially harsh conditions out at sea. Animal sinew has been used as thread for thousands of years. It's incredibly strong, it shrinks as it dries and it sticks to itself, making tight and durable stitches. The Achilles tendon of deer produces strong fibres but they are quite short. Backstrap sinew that I have here is better for sewing because it has nice long fibres. To prepare the sinew, simply remove any fat and meat and leave it out to dry before separating the sinew into strands. Bone needles have been used since at least the Upper Paleolithic. There are archaeological examples over 40,000 years old. Here I'm using deer leg bones that have been ageing outside for a year or two. Bones harden over time, which means that this bone is more rigid and will hold a sharp point better than fresh bone. The first stab at the sewing kit is complete, so I've got this awl slash fid, it'll be used for piercing material and then passing cordage through this channel. Nice long needle here for plenty of grip, curved one so you can get close to a hard or flat surface, this really sharp one which is just for piercing and then a nice little short chunky one there which will do some heavy duties of fine work. Any sharp flint edge will cut buckskin cleanly, in fact freshly struck flint can be sharper than modern steel. The only downside is that the edge doesn't last as long as steel, so it needs to be reworked often. A needle might seem essential for sewing, however it is possible to sew effectively without a needle. Long before the first bone needles appeared, people stitched hides together using nothing more than a sharp tool and patience. A flint blade, a bone awl or even a pointed stick is enough to punch holes through leather and sinew or other threads could be worked through by hand. Needles however do produce faster and finer stitches. Cutting and sewing entirely with stone age tools is absolutely possible, however it takes around five times longer than steel tools. For the rest of this episode I'll switch to simple steel tools to speed things up. The methods remain exactly the same and the end result will be very similar to what our ancestors could have achieved with flint and bone tools. There are many ways to make prehistoric trousers, however based on archaeological finds and examples from indigenous clothing, leggings with a separate breechcloth held up by a belt seem to have been a very old and widespread design. Otzi the Iceman wore something similar over 5,000 years ago in the Alps. The advantage of leggings and a belt is flexibility. Individual parts can be repaired or replaced easily. They will not wear out in the crotch and there is no need to remove them when nature calls. The downside is less predictable coverage. Since I'll be climbing in and out of a boat on camera I'll be joining the legs at the crotch which should be less likely to produce any unwanted surprises but may mean I need to make more crotch repairs. The first known trousers joined at the crotch are over 3,000 years old and were found in western China. The majority of the stitching on the trousers was this backstitch here, however for the sides I decided to use a leather thong and a rough baseball stitch which would allow more ventilation and also it would allow me to quickly undo the sides and then roll the trousers up for when I'm wading through water or if the weather gets really hot. The dimensions for the buckskin top are roughly based on an old flannel shirt of mine. I cut it larger to allow for some extra air circulation in warm weather and enough room for another layer underneath in cold weather. Because I will be using this top in a wide range of weather conditions and for different activities I wanted the shoulders to be weathertight and the sleeves to be detachable without the need for any tools. So I came up with this zipper-like stitch and locking thread design which lets me remove the sleeves in just a few minutes and reattach them in about 15 minutes. The earliest known shoes date back around 10,000 years and were woven from sagebrush bark in Oregon. The oldest leather shoes were found in Armenia and date back around 5,500 years. They were made from a single piece of leather fastened along the top of the foot. Leather footwear almost certainly existed long before this but it rarely survives in the archaeological record. I decided to use this pair of old deck shoes as the base pattern for a pair of ankle-high moccasin style shoes, the design for which has remained relatively unchanged for thousands of years. As winter is only a few months away I will need something warm enough to work in through the cold months. I decided to try and use the two sheepskins that I tanned in the last episode to make a poncho that also converts quickly and easily into a sleeping mat. Overall the top and trousers are incredibly comfortable and breathable and I'm looking forward to wearing them over the next few months and putting them through their paces. The shoes are very lightweight and comfortable but definitely not waterproof so I might need to make some changes when the winter weather arrives but for the next few months at least they will be perfect. Because the poncho also works as a sleeping mat it's a bit of a compromise, not perfect for either purpose but practical for both. I've kept the design simple and rough for now and I'll refine it as I start to use it. In the next episode I will make a stone age axe from scratch using Welsh stone sourced from an ancient axe factory. I'll then use it to gather wood for the winter shelter.