Niche Enough Podcast

Episode 3: Which Came First?

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Episode 3: Which Came First?

The Hami Fragment and Hallstatt Plaid

Ash

Jul 29, 2025

Transcript

Welcome back to Niche Enough, a podcast about material culture. This is Episode Three of the Plaid series and if you haven’t listened to the first two, I think you should. Don’t worry, they aren’t very long, and this episode will still be here when you’re done.

We began our plaid journey by defining plaid - see episode one - and then delving into a very brief history of weaving - see episode two - and now we are back to plaid.

The two oldest known extant plaid textiles are separated by more than 4,000 miles and as many as fifteen hundred years. Despite that distance, these two samples are remarkably similar.

Hami Fragment, dated between 2000-1000 BCE (1)

Hallstatt Plaid, dated between 800-600 BCE (2)

Before we get too deep into which of these was ‘first’ (and then a discussion of why or if that matters) I do want to take the briefest of detours to point out that there is, possibly, an even older extant plaid textile. Elizabeth Barber - whose book Women’s Work I’ve already cited and will do so again - said that plaid twills had first been discovered in the ruins of Troy, dating back to 2600 BCE. (3) I haven’t been able to find photographic evidence of those samples, but I wanted to bring them up anyway.

Back to Hami and Hallstatt. Let’s learn a little more about where each of these textiles was found and the cultures that they are linked to.

Tarim Basin Mummies

The Hami Fragment is among many textile samples discovered in tombs and burial sites in the Tarim Basin in Northwestern China. Today, this area is home to the Uyghurs, an indigenous Muslim population that migrated to the region around 800 CE. There is archeological evidence of people living in this area as early as 2100 BCE and there are seven distinct cultures or civilizations. The Tarim Basin Mummies, as they are called, aren’t actually mummies. Mummification is a process of preserving human remains that you might be familiar with depending on how deep your Egyptology phase went. None of these bodies were mummified. Instead, their decay was slowed and the remains - both human and archeological - were preserved because of the cold, dry climate. If you want to go down a very deep rabbit hole, check out the source links at the end, which delve more into the Tarim Basin Mummies.

The oldest remains date back to roughly 2000 BCE and the various burial sites and artifacts demonstrate steady inhabitation of the Tarim Basin from that point onward. These civilizations existed during both the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Just like we divide the ye olden times of dinosaurs into different periods, we divide human history into different ages. The Bronze Age - so named because of the importance of bronze - covers roughly the span of 3300-800 BCE. The Iron Age overlaps and extends beyond, 1200-550 BCE.

So, in the Tarim Basin, we have several thousand years of remains that tell the story of technological advances, cultural evolutions, ethnographic shifts and even fashion. We can piece together ideas about the people who lived in the Tarim Basin because of how they were buried - what they were dressed in and what possessions were included in their coffins - and one such not-mummy was buried with the textile that we now call the Hami Fragment.

You might have noticed that both it and the Hallstatt Plaid are called twill plaids, and you might also have noticed that among the basic weaving patterns I discussed last time, twill was not among them. I apologize for that. A twill weave is very similar to the plain weave we learned about before, but instead of the alternating over-under-over-under of the basic plain weave, a twill weave adds in a step:

Twill weave, my illustration

So I’ve illustrated a 3-1 step twill weave. Which translates to a weft yarn going OVER one warp then under three before going OVER again. The next row would alternate, so you would start by going under one, then OVER one, then under three, OVER one, etc. You would continue like this and it creates a stepped pattern. If you’re wearing jeans, or have some handy, take a look - they are made with a twill weave. You will be able to see the diagonal stepping pattern easily. More on denim and blue jeans later (after I’ve finished talking about plaid).

While we’re at it, what does a twill plaid look like in diagram form? I’m glad I asked myself this question, because it means I sat down to draw it and if the number of times I lost count and had to hit ‘undo’ means anything, it at least means I have a greater appreciation for how a weaver kept track of their pattern.

My Illustration

That is just a 24x24 yarn sample, so you can’t really tell what it looks like. Let’s ‘weave’ more:

My illustration

With that sense of scale, you can start to appreciate that a plaid, especially a twill plaid, is a lot more complex than simply alternating color for over-under. Or at least it can be.

Neither the Hami Fragment nor the Hallstatt Plaid are the plaid twill pattern that I illustrated, so don’t compare them too closely. And also, let’s get back to talking about those.

The Tarim Basin mummies give us a tantalizing glimpse into a civilization that, while in a remote and desolate area, was situated on what would become a major trade route. There is still debate on the ethnography of the Tarim Basin mummies. DNA samples reveal early inhabitants to be most closely tied to the Ancient North Eurasian genetic groups, but there has been a lot of debate about the genetic origin of the Tarim Basin inhabitants - check out source 3 for more on that -with many suggesting that these people were descended from an Indo-European group first located in what is now modern day Ukraine. This theory is based on manuscripts found at several burial locations. These manuscripts were written in a language that branches out from other Indo-European languages, but those manuscripts are dated between 600-800 CE. In other words, at 2500-1500 years after the Hami Fragment was woven.

The general idea is that some group of early humans settled in modern day Ukraine 5000 years ago and then decided to venture out into the world. Some people travelled east and their genetics, culture and language diffused throughout northwestern Asia and into India, while others traveled west and north into Europe.

In the Tarim Basin, these Indo-Europeans would have encountered the Ancient North Eurasian peoples and the intermingling created the distinct language, culture and genetic makeup we find in Tarim. But those aren’t the only people buried there. There are dozens of mummies that are genetic outliers, suggesting travelers from Europe and Asia. And with travel, we can assume trade.

And if we assume trade, we have to ask: did the Hami Fragment come from the Tarim Basin or somewhere else?

Hallstatt

We don’t know when exactly people started living in Hallstatt. The modern town is situated on Lake Hallstatt in Austria. Our evidence of prehistoric and historic people living there is tied to the salt mines around the area and burial sites near them, the oldest dated back to around 800 BCE. The Hallstatt civilization evolved from the Urnfield culture, so named because they would cremate human remains in urns and spread their ashes in fields. The Hallstatt people obviously stopped doing this - otherwise we wouldn’t have their remains to examine. However, this is part of the reason why historians believe settlements existed in Hallstatt before 800 BCE - we just don’t have the artefacts to show for it because their bodies were cremated and their ‘stuff’ was passed down and used by the people who came later.

The Hallstatt civilization and the people who lived in this region during that period are considered proto-Celtic. Which is to say, people from this region eventually migrated further north and west and became the Celts. More directly related to plaid, the Hallstatt civilization is home to the people who would eventually populate Scotland.

Which Came First? And Why Does it Matter?

The question of which came first is part of why I wanted to share a very brief history of the global plaid tradition. The persistent narrative is that plaid is Scottish, that the Scots brought it to Africa and Asia and the Americas. There are a few problems with this narrative, and I’ll keep unravelling this theory as we hop around the world, but the most obvious one is that the timing simply doesn’t work.

The oldest Scottish plaid - made in Scotland by Scottish hands - is probably the Falkirk Plaid:

Falkirk Tartan , 300 CE (4)

Before we get too ahead of ourselves, I want to describe the Scottish climate: cold and damp. That’s not a recipe for textile conservation. It doesn’t come close to the conditions in, say, Hallstatt or the Tarim Basin.

Celtic people arrived in Scotland around 1000 BCE - although this is also up for some debate but neither here nor there at the moment.

So, when we look at these three textile samples, it’s easy to say which came first: the Tarim Basin Hami Fragment, then the Hallstatt Plaid and last, the Falkirk Tartan.

But.

Where did the Hami Fragment come from? Where did the Hallstatt Plaid come from? Were they woven locally? I am not going to take a wild turn and suggest that either came from Scotland - the timing doesn’t work, not really, for the Hami Fragment in particular.

But there is still debate among historians about where the Hami Fragment came from. There is a general consensus that it came from the Hallstatt region as a textile, perhaps in trade, and not that it was woven by the Tarim Basin inhabitants.

Why is that the general consensus?

That’s the real question I want to answer.

It’s not because the Hami Fragment is the only plaid found in the Tarim Basin. Other plaid textiles have been documented, although access to any analysis or photos is behind a paywall and not something I have access to. However, the Tarim Basin Mummies are overwhelmingly clothed in not plaid. This would indicate that plaid - and twill plaid in particular - are the outlier and not the common thread, if you will.

Before you say ah, ha! It must be from Hallstatt! I want to point out that the same thing I just said is true of the Hallstatt cemeteries and mines. The Hallstatt Plaid fragment isn’t the only plaid, but it’s also not the most common textile found at the Hallstatt sites.

So maybe the plaid did come from the Tarim Basin. Or maybe it came from Hallstatt. Or - alright, I don’t think we can say maybe it came from Scotland. There are too many barriers to that being the logical source.

Maybe it came from that foundational Indo-European group, still settled in Ukraine and along the Russian Steppes.

The sad reality of studying the history of fashion - and textiles - is that they deteriorate, or we cut them up, and we just don’t have as many textile artefacts as we have artefacts of tools and food and other stuff.

And now that I have conveniently mentioned ‘other stuff’ - let me segue into the next topic: depictions of plaid in the ancient Middle East and Egypt. We’ll get into all of that next time.

Sources: