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World’s Oldest Pants Unearthed in China

Started by Syt, June 03, 2014, 08:25:04 AM

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Syt

http://archaeology.org/news/2157-140602-china-yanghai-pants



QuoteWorld's Oldest Pants Unearthed in China

BERLIN, GERMANY—Science News reports that the remains of two men wearing trousers have been recovered from the Yanghai graveyard in China's Tarim Basin by Ulrike Beck and Mayke Wagner of the German Archaeological Institute. They say that the trousers are the oldest known examples of their kind. Dated to between 3,300 and 3,000 years ago, the pants have straight-fitting legs and a wide crotch. They were sewn together from three pieces of wool cloth that had been woven on a loom to the correct size, and fashioned with side slits, strings at the waist for fastening, and designs on the legs. One of the men had been buried with a decorated leather bridle and a wooden bit, a battle ax, and a leather bracer for arm protection. The other man was accompanied by a whip, a decorated horse tail, a bow sheath, and a bow. "This new paper [in Quaternary International] definitely supports the idea that trousers were invented for horse riding by mobile pastoralists, and that trousers were brought to the Tarim Basin by horse-riding peoples," commented Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania.

They made shit to last back in the day. How long does a good pair of jeans last these days?
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

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KRonn

Quote from: Syt on June 03, 2014, 08:25:04 AM

They made shit to last back in the day. How long does a good pair of jeans last these days?

Maybe Levi's company can copy those trousers, make them to last for a few thousand years!  ;)

Pedrito

They were creamed after the announcing of Szechuan Universalis IV.

L.
b / h = h / b+h


27 Zoupa Points, redeemable at the nearest liquor store! :woot:

Ed Anger

Quote from: Pedrito on June 03, 2014, 08:47:35 AM
They were creamed after the announcing of Szechuan Universalis IV.

L.

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Stay Alive...Let the Man Drive

jimmy olsen

Not nearly as old as I was expecting. This isn't impressive at all. I'd expect pants to have been invented soon after the needle 60,000 years ago.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
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Malthus

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 03, 2014, 08:56:30 AM
Not nearly as old as I was expecting. This isn't impressive at all. I'd expect pants to have been invented soon after the needle 60,000 years ago.

The problem is that, unless conditions are just right and remain just right, textiles do not survive for long.

Maybe pants were invented 60K YA, but chances are a pair that old would never be found. That would imply the pants, for example, survived the last round of ice ages, which is unlikely; climate change will most likely have put them through at least one wet spell.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

jimmy olsen

With a title like that I was expecting some Otzi style iceman frozen in a glacier or Siberian permafrost.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Malthus

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 03, 2014, 09:10:33 AM
With a title like that I was expecting some Otzi style iceman frozen in a glacier or Siberian permafrost.

Otzi wasn't wearing pants, but rather leggings.  ;)

But yeah - he's remarkable for his state of preservation, which is very, very unusual. Also, he's not orders of magnitude older - he is aprox. 5K YA, these pants 3K.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

jimmy olsen

40,000 year mammoths in similar condition have been found.
It is far better for the truth to tear my flesh to pieces, then for my soul to wander through darkness in eternal damnation.

Jet: So what kind of woman is she? What's Julia like?
Faye: Ordinary. The kind of beautiful, dangerous ordinary that you just can't leave alone.
Jet: I see.
Faye: Like an angel from the underworld. Or a devil from Paradise.
--------------------------------------------
1 Karma Chameleon point

Malthus

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 03, 2014, 09:28:59 AM
40,000 year mammoths in similar condition have been found.

To date, as far as I know, no clothes that old have survived and been found. It isn't impossible, of course, but it would appear that preservation of clothes older than about 5,000 years is very, very unusual.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

Brazen

Good "world's oldest" reference here. They have a 5,900 year old skirt and 5,500 year old shoes.

http://www.oddee.com/item_98628.aspx

The Brain

Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Jacob

Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 03, 2014, 09:28:59 AM
40,000 year mammoths in similar condition have been found.

But they weren't wearing pants, now were they?

mongers

Quote from: Jacob on June 03, 2014, 02:57:51 PM
Quote from: jimmy olsen on June 03, 2014, 09:28:59 AM
40,000 year mammoths in similar condition have been found.

But they weren't wearing pants, now were they?

:D

Shush, you'll confuse him.
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The Brain

Women want me. Men want to be with me.