Braid (hairstyle)
hairstyle
Braids (also referred to as plaits) are a hairstyle formed by interlacing three or more strands of hair. Braiding has been used to style and ornament human and animal hair for thousands of years world-wide in various cultures around the world. Braided hairstyles are used in many cultures as social signifiers for traits such as marital status, gender, social class, and age.
The simplest and most common version is a flat, solid, three-stranded structure. More complex patterns can be constructed from an arbitrary number of strands to create a wider range of structures. The structure is usually long and narrow with each component strand functionally equivalent in zigzagging forward through the overlapping mass of the others. Incorporating more hair as the braid progresses, either from the head or from separate wefts of hair, can create other styles such as knotless braids and French braids. Small items like beads and shells can also be incorporated into the braid.
History
The earliest known depiction of braiding may be the Venus of Willendorf, a female figurine unearthed in Austria which is estimated to have been made between about 28,000 and 25,000 BCE. It has been disputed whether the horizontal spiral ridges on the statue's head depict braided hair or some sort of a woven basket.
The Venus of Brassempouy in France is estimated to be about 25,000 years old and ostensibly shows a braided hairstyle.
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This entry incorporates text from “Braid (hairstyle)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.