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ContentsMayVary t1_jdugyrc wrote

Reply to comment by [deleted] in Oldest tartan found to date back to 16th Century - A scrap of fabric found in a Highland peat bog 40 years ago is likely to be the oldest tartan ever discovered in Scotland, new tests have established. by ArtOak

But that's a "Border Tartan" (two colours, undyed) rather than a "Scottish Tartan" (multiple colours, dyed) which is the distinction they are making.

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barkfoot t1_jduj7xp wrote

So Tartans were much older and widespread and more recently became distinctly Scottish and multicoloured?

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CoffeeshopWithACause t1_jduk360 wrote

Pretty much. 'Whereas tartan - that is, cloth woven in a geometrical pattern of colours - was known in Scotland in the sixteenth century [...] the philibeg - name and thing - is unknown before the eighteenth century. So far from being a traditional Highland dress, it was invented by an Englishman after the Union of 1707; and the differentiated 'clan tartans' are an even later invention.'

From The Invention of Tradition, eds. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, contribution by Hugh Trevor-Roper.

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