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The Invention Of Trousers / Pants

EnolaGaia

EnolaGaia

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Woven trousers discovered in Tarim Basin graves (China) are believed to be the oldest pants in the world. They're believed to have been invented by or for horse riders in central Asia.
First pants worn by horse riders 3,000 years ago
By Bruce Bower
MAY 30, 2014 AT 9:05 AM

Two men whose remains were recently excavated from tombs in western China put their pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. But these nomadic herders did so between 3,300 and 3,000 years ago, making their trousers the oldest known examples of this innovative apparel, a new study finds.

With straight-fitting legs and a wide crotch, the ancient wool trousers resemble modern riding pants, says a team led by archaeologists Ulrike Beck and Mayke Wagner of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. The discoveries, uncovered in the Yanghai graveyard in China’s Tarim Basin, support previous work suggesting that nomadic herders in Central Asia invented pants to provide bodily protection and freedom of movement for horseback journeys and mounted warfare, the scientists report May 22 in Quaternary International. ...

Each pair of trousers was sewn together from three pieces of brown-colored wool cloth, one piece for each leg and an insert for the crotch. The tailoring involved no cutting: Pant sections were shaped on a loom in the final size. Finished pants included side slits, strings for fastening at the waist and woven designs on the legs. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/first-pants-worn-horse-riders-3000-years-ago
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract for the 2014 research report.

Ulrike Beck, Mayke Wagner, Xiao Li, Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, Pavel E. Tarasov
The invention of trousers and its likely affiliation with horseback riding and mobility: A case study of late 2nd millennium BC finds from Turfan in eastern Central Asia
Quaternary International, Volume 348, 2014, Pages 224-235, ISSN 1040-6182.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.04.056.

Abstract
Here, we present the first report on the design and manufacturing process of trousers excavated at Yanghai cemetery (42°48′–42°49′N, 89°39′–89°40′E) near the Turfan oasis, western China. In tombs M21 and M157 fragments of woollen trousers were discovered which have been radiocarbon dated to the time interval between the 13th and the 10th century BC. Their age corresponds to the spread of mobile pastoralism in eastern Central Asia and predates the widely known Scythian finds. Using methods of fashion design, the cut of both trousers was studied in detail. The trousers were made of three independently woven pieces of fabric, one nearly rectangular for each side spanning the whole length from waistband to hemline at the ankle and one stepped cross-shaped crotch-piece which bridged the gap between the two side-pieces. The tailoring process did not involve cutting the cloth: instead the parts were shaped on the loom, and they were shaped in the correct size to fit a specific person. The yarns of the three fabrics and threads for final sewing match in color and quality, which implies that the weaver and the tailor was the same person or that both cooperated in a highly coordinated way. The design of the trousers from Yanghai with straight-fitting legs and a wide crotch-piece seems to be a predecessor of modern riding trousers. Together with horse gear and weapons as grave goods in both tombs our results specify former assumptions that the invention of bifurcated lower body garments is related to the new epoch of horseback riding, mounted warfare and greater mobility. Trousers are essential part of the tool kit with which humans improve their physical qualities.

SOURCE: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1040618214002808
 
More recently, researchers have created replicas of the world's earliest known pants and refined their hypotheses concerning who invented them and how they came to the Tarim Basin.
The world’s oldest pants stitched together cultures from across Asia
By Bruce Bower
FEBRUARY 18, 2022 AT 7:00 AM

... Herders and horse riders who buried their dead in the Tarim Basin’s Yanghai graveyard pioneered pants making between roughly 3,200 and 3,000 years ago. Their deft combination of weaving techniques and decorative patterns — displaying influences from societies across Eurasia — yielded a pair of stylish yet durable trousers now recognized as the oldest such garment known in the world (SN: 5/30/14).

Now, an international team of archaeologists, fashion designers, geoscientists, chemists and conservators has untangled how those trousers were made and painstakingly created a modern replica. The vintage slacks weave a tale not only of textile innovation but also of how cultural practices fanned out across Asia, the researchers report in the March Archaeological Research in Asia.

“A diversity of textile techniques and patterns of different local origins, traditions and times merged into something new in this garment,” says archaeologist and project director Mayke Wagner of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pants-oldest-ancient-horseman-asia-culture-origin
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract from the latest (2022) article.

Mayke Wagner, Moa Hallgren-Brekenkamp, Dongliang Xu, Xiaojing Kang, Patrick Wertmann, Carol James, Irina Elkina, Dominic Hosner, Christian Leipe, Pavel E. Tarasov
The invention of twill tapestry points to Central Asia: Archaeological record of multiple textile techniques used to make the woollen outfit of a ca. 3000-year-old horse rider from Turfan, China
Archaeological Research in Asia, Volume 29, 2022, 100344, ISSN 2352-2267.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2021.100344.

Abstract
Ancient knowledge of the textile arts production and weaving techniques belong to the world's intangible cultural heritage and shape the appearance of most people worldwide when used for clothing. However, their ancient roots can be seldom studied because archaeological textiles and looms on which they were produced decay in most environments without trace. This article presents technical details of fabric and finishing techniques of eight wool garments of a horseman buried ca. 1200–1000 BCE at Yanghai, located in the Turfan oasis in Northwest China. They show an unprecedented diversity and a free combination of three weaving techniques and one type of weft twining supplemented by at least three different braiding methods to finish and fasten the clothes. All techniques were validated by reproduction. The most complex piece of the costume, the man's trousers, known as one of the oldest preserved to date, was made with four different textile techniques on one device, two of them are new discoveries and termed “Yanghai dovetailed twill tapestry” and “Yanghai weft twining”. The studied textiles are local products showing advancements of wool technologies developed in the southern (tapestry) and northern (twill) parts of West Asia, which were transferred and further refined by wool-workers via as yet unknown areas in central and northern Eurasia. A specific inclined T-hook pattern zone at the trousers' knees finds close correspondence with patterns on ritual bronze vessels of the late Shang dynasty in the Chinese Central Plains, ca. 1300–1100 BCE, and on pottery of the Andronovo-Federovo archaeological complex in southwest Siberia and Central Asia, ca. 1800–1000 BCE. Since the appearance of this pattern in Northwest and Central China coincides with the arrival of domesticated horses and associated technologies, the horse breeders likely were the mediators. The stepped pyramid or merlon pattern might refer to architectural features of Eastern Iran and the middle Bronze Age Oxus civilisation. To verify the possible connections, however, is subject to future studies.

SOURCE: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352226721000908
 
And yet women were considered inappropriate if they dared to wear pants, even in the 1950's women were still wearing dresses.
I remember many office jobs where women were not allowed to wear pants, then eventually we could, but they had to be pant suits. Archaic! LOL
Thank God for the invention of jeans!
 
Some of the people depicted in the cave art at La Marche France (c. 15,000 BC) appear to be wearing sophisticated clothing, such as a long sleeved tunic, cap and 3/4 length shorts:

lamarche4.gif


http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/francelamarche.htm
 
In fact, the clothing depicted at La Marche reminds me of traditional Eskimo/Inuit clothing but with a Russian style fur Ushanka cap instead of a hood.
Must have got rather chilly in those caves.

clothing.png
cap.png
 
Ronnie Jersey said:
And yet women were considered inappropriate if they dared to wear pants, even in the 1950's women were still wearing dresses.
I remember many office jobs where women were not allowed to wear pants, then eventually we could, but they had to be pant suits. Archaic! LOL
Thank God for the invention of jeans!
Click to expand...

And I am considered inappropriate when I don't wear them.

You can't win.
 
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