(Vavavooom!) 600-year-old bra and underwear discovered in an Austrian castle

IO9 ^ | Jul 18, 2012 | Annalee Newitz

[DogByte6RER]

600-year-old bra and underwear discovered in an Austrian castle

Contemporary bras are more comfortable, modified versions of corsets — or so it was believed, until a 2007 discovery changed the way we see women's underwear. Working with a team of her colleagues, archaeologist Beatrix Nutz recently publicized her discovery of several linen bras and some underwear in a medieval castle.

Nutz has presented academic papers about her discovery, and even analyzed the underwear for DNA (see picture). But the public didn't hear about the medieval bras until a BBC history program showed pictures of them. Nutz and colleagues also found a pair of men's underwear (pictured below) — apparently medieval women wore no panties.

What this means is that women were wearing bras long before the invention of corsets. So corsets have been revealed as the uncomfortable, restrictive version of bras. Does that mean the middle ages were actually a more liberal time than the corset-obsessed eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?

[varyouga]

“Agreed, but you stated your theoretical conclusions without qualification or condition in your original post.”

I don't think I stated anything too radical or far from the truth. It is simply how nature works for uncivilized species.

Do you honestly believe prehistoric humans were even remotely civilized or moral? Even in some supposedly civilized ancient societies with historic records, weak babies and barren women were taken out of town to die.

Even in the USA, we had slavery less than 200 years ago and women did not have the same rights as men until the 20th century.

[LexBaird]

I don't think I stated anything too radical or far from the truth. It is simply how nature works for uncivilized species.

"Because I think so" is a very weak reed on which to make sweeping statements. There's plenty of evidence...real evidence ... that early civilizations valued and honored elders, for example. A far cry from killing them off when they stopped bearing kids.

Tribal groups are very generationally connected, which would argue against your brutal darwinian theory.