Why do you wear the kilt.

[bubba]

The country's recent interest in the checkered design, however, is due to one particular find, a remnant of an early Celtic kilt, and some clever public relations by Thomas Rettl, a clothing manufacturer whose business is located near the ancient kilt site.

This is a bit of a stretch. The cloth found in Austria is just that, a tartan type cloth. To call it a kilt is a far reach. Also, to say it originated in Austria is arguing a fact not in evidence. The fact that the mummies found in China were northern european is not evidence they were from Austria at all. All the Austrian find proves is that tartan type cloth was used in that area and the only remarkable thing about it is that a fragment survived that long. The Chinese finds beat that and indicate that Celtic people not only traveled more widely than was thought, but that they settled as far east as western China and intermarried (so to speak) with the people there.

[M. A. C. Newsome]

Here is an article I wrote after reading the news of the Austrian kilts!
----
WAS THE KILT INVENTED IN AUSTRIA?

(NO!)

A promotional article appearing on the Ananova web site (among other places) claims just that. This strange notion comes from one Mr. Thomas Rettl, who is marketing various tartans found in archaeological digs in Austria (see the Carinthian and Styrian tartans). There is nothing wrong with taking old tartans from such finds and reviving them. In fact, should these regions in Austria wish to be represented by a district tartan, adopting one of these old specimens would be a marvelous idea. But any serious historian would have to object to some of the ridiculous claims being made to promote these tartans.

First of all, the article claims that these are the oldest tartans in the world, dating to at least 320 BC. While they are certainly old, much older than any of the popular Scottish clan tartans, they cannot claim to be the oldest in the world. Tartan cloth dating to around 1200 BC has been found in the deserts of Taklamakan, China. Older tartan cloth may yet be discovered.

They also claim that tartan was not woven in Scotland until 1300 AD. This is another false claim. Surviving pieces of tartan have been found in Scotland that date to 250-325 AD (the Falkirk tartan). As the climate in Scotland is not the best for preserving textiles, we do not know how much earlier tartan cloth may have been woven.

That tartan has been found produced outside of Scotland, and from an early date, should surprise no one. Anywhere that people developed the technology to produce woven cloth, they likely also produced some sort of tartan design. After weaving plain cloth, the next logical step to make the cloth more decorative is to weave in stripes. And if the stripes are repeated in both the warp and the weft, you have a simple tartan. But only in Scotland has tartan been taken to such a high art form and imbued with cultural significance.

Mr. Rettl makes the leap of logic that if tartan was early worn in Austria, the kilt must have been worn there, as well. "Ever since we found out that Austria was the true home to tartan we have been doing a roaring trade," he is quoted as saying. "It was found not in Scotland but in a place called Molzbichl in Carinthia in Austria. The Celts who conquered Scotland originally came from Europe, which would back our claim to have had the kilt first."

The problem with his thinking is that tartan does not equal the kilt. One can find paintings of Japanese women in tartan kimonos, but that does not mean that they were wearing the kilt! A quick study into the history of Scottish Highland dress reveals that the kilt, as we know it today, evolved (in Scotland) from the untailored feilidh-beag, which in turn evolved from the feilidh-mhor or belted plaid, first worn in the Scottish Highlands in the late sixteenth century. To imagine invading Celts coming to Scotland from Austria in pre-historic times, wearing tartan kilts, is pure fiction! To make such a claim seriously is embarrassing (and would also contradict his other erroneous claim that tartan was not worn in Scotland until 1300 AD).

So while we applaud the effort to promote a traditional Austrian tartan, and are honored that Austrians would want to wear the Scottish national dress, we implore the promoters of these items to stop making such baseless, unhistorical claims.

[Thistle Stop]

The country's recent interest in the checkered design, however, is due to one particular find, a remnant of an early Celtic kilt, and some clever public relations by Thomas Rettl, a clothing manufacturer whose business is located near the ancient kilt site.

This is a bit of a stretch. The cloth found in Austria is just that, a tartan type cloth. To call it a kilt is a far reach. Also, to say it originated in Austria is arguing a fact not in evidence. The fact that the mummies found in China were northern european is not evidence they were from Austria at all. All the Austrian find proves is that tartan type cloth was used in that area and the only remarkable thing about it is that a fragment survived that long. The Chinese finds beat that and indicate that Celtic people not only traveled more widely than was thought, but that they settled as far east as western China and intermarried (so to speak) with the people there.

It's not me saying it -- it's the Discovery Channel. And I don't necessarily agree with them -- I don't know enough about it! I believe there were fair-haried mummies found with the tartan cloth, which may give another clue of a European origin, but it certainly doesn't show a specific point of origin. I think it's quite likely that the Austrian connction is more marketing ploy, as suggested, than fact.

[Thistle Stop]

Good work, Matt!

[KiltedBishop]

A lot of people don't know this, but in Japan their equivilent to our "Native Americans" are caucasians. The Ainu.

[Dreadbelly]

If somebody made the kilt illegal and told me not to wear it, I would twist them into a pretzel, squeeze them down to a milkjug sized lump, jam them into a Coke bottle, cork it, and throw it out to sea.

[bubba]

It's not me saying it -- it's the Discovery Channel. And I don't necessarily agree with them -- I don't know enough about it!

One thing I've learned watching the Discovery Channel is to take it with a grain of salt and verify from other sources. It really was a marketing ploy to claim the first known tartan even though they knew about the China finds. Rather dishonest in my view and claiming the kilt was a flat out falsehood. There are better ways to promote those tartans.

[Rob]

Matt Newsome wrote:-

To imagine invading Celts coming to Scotland from Austria in pre-historic times, wearing tartan kilts, is pure fiction!

Matt is spot on. The Celts of Scotland most certainly did not come into Britain from Austria wearing tartan kilts, because the Celts of Scotland (or any other Celts in the British Isles for that matter) did not originate from Austria. Recent population genetics analyses have shown that the Celtic peoples of the British Isles (whether Gaelic or Brythonic) are not closely related to the people of Central Europe (including Austria). They are much more closely related (genetically speaking) to the Basques of Northern Spain, and it is now thought that migrants from this region of the Iberian peninsula repopulated the British Isles at the end of the last Ice age, and that these ‘Iberians’ represent the ancestors of the native Britons (Celts), including the Highland Scots.

Sorry Austrians, but your ancestors did not migrate to Scotland wearing tartan kilts. Now has anyone managed to find a well-preserved pair of prehistoric lederhosen buried in a peat bog in the Scottish Highlands?

Rob

[Manu]

Where did you get all this info from? Im interested. Did it only mention mention the basques? What about the Galicians?

[Rob]

Iñaki asked:-

Where did you get all this info from? Im interested. Did it only mention mention the basques? What about the Galicians?

Much of the info came from the following two population genetics research papers:-

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/tcga/tcgapdf/capelli-CB-03.pdf

http://popgen.biol.ucl.ac.uk/PDFs/35.pdf

WARNING: A lot of the data contained in these papers is of a highly technical nature, so it is best to skip much of it and read through the Results and Discussion sections.

I think there is enough here to be able to rule out any possibility of tartan kilts being brought to Scotland by a mass migration of Celts from Austria. However, the evidence is strongly in favour of the Northern Iberia to the British Isles post Ice Age migration theory.

Regarding your question of whether Galicians could also have been involved in such a northward migration, if there is a close genetic similarity between the Galicians and the Basques, then it would indeed have been possible. Certainly Galicia has a culture, which has been identified by some as being Celtic. However, any such migrations would have been far too early to have involved the transfer of a tartan kilt wearing culture from Iberia to Scotland.

Rob