Trousers were invented at least 3,000 years ago – for riding
The Tarim Basin in Central Asia with its hot but exceedingly dry climate has yielded a number of well preserved mummies and over 500 tombs have been found and excavated in the last 50 years. A new paper describes the finding of well preserved trousers from 3,000 to 3,300 years ago.
Whether these were the first ever trousers cannot be determined of course. But these remains found in Central Asia tell us that horse riding is at least 3,000 years old (and herding, capturing, breaking and training horses must have been “invented” well before that).
Chinese trousers 3000 years old – photo M Wagner, German Archaeological Institute
The k2p blog 