One of the most novel uses for DNA sequencing is the determination of when humans first began wearing clothing. According to Mark Stoneking and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institiute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, we started wearing clothing about 70,000 years ago. This date is based on genes of human sucking lice. It correlates with the approximate time when the body louse evolved from the human head louse and corresponds to the time when the body louse's habitat (clothing) became widespread. This is also the time when Homo sapiens sapiens began moving out of Africa into cooler regions of Europe.

Human head louse

Sucking lice belong to the wingless, parasitic insect order Anoplura. Human sucking lice include body lice, crab lice and head lice (Pediculus humanus). Anoplurans use a set of long hypodermic-like stylets to pierce the skin and withdraw blood. After ingesting blood their body becomes swollen and shows a dark clot of blood in their abdomen. There are two forms of human sucking lice, the head louse (P. humanus capitis) and the body louse (P. humanus humanus). The head louse infests the hair of the scalp and the body louse lives in clothing near the body surface. Human lice are also known as "cooties" and their eggs attached to hairs are called "nits." Human lice cause local itching, but the discomfort is minor compared with the misery of the bacterium they can transmit called Rickettsia prowazeki. This minute bacterium causes "Epidemic Typhus," a serious disease that has devastated populations in medieval Europe.

Stoneking and his colleagues Ralf Kittler and Manfred Kayser compared mitochondrial DNA sequences from head and body lice. The greater the difference in sequences between the two forms of lice, the older their evolutionary split. Human lice from Africa are more genetically diverse than lice from other parts of the world, indicating that the species originated in Africa. Head lice are more diverse than body lice, showing that they are the older group. By comparing the mitochondrial DNA of body lice to chimpanzee lice, Stoneking's team was able to approximate the origin of body lice to around 70,000 years ago. This date correlates well with the growing evidence that modern humans evolved in Africa and migrated northward around 100,000 years ago.

Stoneking is also studying human crab lice (Pthirus pubus) which typically inhabit pubic hair. Human pubic lice are more closely related to gorilla lice than to head lice. Since this sucking louse only inhabits hairy places on the body, it might shed some light on when humans lost their heavy body hair. Crab lice are typically transferred from person to person through sexual intercourse, although they may also be picked up from infested linen, clothing and other sources.