Erratum: Old textiles - New possibilities (European Journal of Archaeology (2010) 13, 2 (149-173) DOI: 10.1177/1461957110365513) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Bier and Dusenbury, Textiles, Encyclopedia of Archaeology (2008), vol. 3, pp. 2119-2125
Encyclopedia of Archaeology, 2008
Textiles and archaeology have a complex relationship. Textiles are pervasive in virtually all societies, but their pervasive presence and cultural importance is not reflected in the archaeological record. As products of technology, objects of trade, markers of identity, and bearers of constructed meanings, and sometimes as works of art, textiles can convey massive amounts of information about human societies and their economies. They represent a range of forms and functions; they are expressive of cultural ideals and norms, government decrees, and human ideals, desires, and aspirations. Textiles articulate relationships among individuals, identities, and cultural groupings. Representing sophisticated understandings of materials and their properties, and manipulated through diverse technologies, textiles embody human ingenuity, creativity, and pragmatic solutions to everyday problems of the human condition. In spite of their profound significance, they factor minimally in the archaeological record due to a variety of factors such as their fragile nature, organic composition, patterns of use and wear, and general tendency to decompose in most environments. Article explores what we know of textiles and archaeology in Egypt and the Near, Asia, and the Americas.
Archaeological Textiles: a View of Current Research
Archaeological textile studies are now recognized as a robust source of information for anthropological inquiry. Over the last decade several important developments have taken place, enabling an integrated approach to the study of archaeological textiles. Topics range from the development of analytical methods for the analysis of degraded fibers to the comparative study of specific histories of textile and clothing traditions. Archaeological textile studies address relevant issues ranging from aesthetics and style to gender; from technological development to production and exchange economics. This chapter presents an overview of current research in the growing field of archaeological textile studies. Both Old World and New World textile projects are examined, allowing for a balanced assessment of the various directions which have been taken in methodology, research objectives, and data procurement.
2019
This Habilitationsschrift (University Vienna) “Archaeological Textile Research: Technical, economic and social aspects of textile production and clothing from Neolithic to the Early Modern Era” reflects two decades of applied research on archaeological textiles and related sources. The motivation is to improve understanding of the role of textile production and textile products in the history of humankind. Embedding finds and their context information into socio-economical and cultural discourse contributes to a cultural anthropology of textile use. For pre- and protohistory in the region of Central Europe, it is a challenge that textiles are among those organic materials that are rarely preserved under the prevailing climatic conditions. Despite the scarcity of organic finds, nevertheless, for the studies of the author the analysis of actual textiles from archaeological contexts serves as main source of knowledge. This are mainly textiles from grave contexts that survived attached to metal artefacts, as well as textiles from saltmines. Minor importance for my research play waterlogged and dry conditions. Textile finds, together with tools, pictorial and written sources, yield information on the chaîne opératoire of textile production. Thus one of the research foci is to help identify different production processes and sequences such as preparing raw materials, making threads, weaving (and other methods of constructing fabrics), patterning and sewing techniques. Textile techniques and their uses in different periods of time are studied to gain information about developments in techniques such as inventions, innovations, traditions, and the various modes of production. This research about the technological aspects of textile craft is also set in context with the social and economic background of innovation in Central European Prehistory. The period from the 3rd to 1st millennium BC is specifically the focus of studies on textile technology. Besides textile technology, the most important research undertaken by the author are about functions, resource management, dress and identity, as well as creativity and design. The function of textiles in Prehistory and Antiquity is identified from context information and the properties of the textiles. Finds consist of clothing, soft furnishings, textiles used for technical purposes (e.g. linings of scabbards), including grave goods or textiles as tools (e.g. carry sacks in mines). Research about resource management, use, reuse and “recycling” addresses questions which are also important today. The same applies to the field of dress and identity and the social value of clothing and textiles from the Bronze Age to the Medieval era. The material can also be studied in terms of representation and appearance of textile surfaces and patterns, visual codes, creativity and design – such as the relevance for non-verbal communication.
Archaeological Textiles – A Need for New Methods of Analysis and Reconstruction
Archaeological textiles bear important testimony to everyday life, farming, trade, migration of nations, religious rituals, art and technical culture. The main reason we know very little about them is that textiles are very impermanent, fragile, and can survive well only in very good conditions. Most of them become nearly completely destroyed due to ageing in an extremely hard archaeological environment . However, it is possible to determine and identify the properties that archaeological textiles had in the past. Research undertaken by us resulted in the development of methods of analysis and visualisation of archaeological textiles in the form they were originally made, which will be presented in our next paper. This paper is to present the main problems scientists have to face when dealing with archaeological textiles .
North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles X (2010)
2010
The NESAT symposium has grown from the first meeting in 1981 which was attended by 23 scholars, to over 100 at the tenth meeting that took place in Copenhagen in 2008, with virtually all areas of Europe represented. The 50 papers from the conference presented here show the vibrance of the study of archaeological textiles today. Examples studied come from the Bronze Age, Neolithic, the Iron Age, Roman, Viking, the Middle Ages and post-Medieval, and from a wide range of countries including Norway, Czech Republic, Poland, Greece, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia and the Netherlands. Modern techniques of analysis and examination are also discussed.
Archaeological Textiles-Links Between Past and Present, NESAT XIII), Hrsg. M. Bravermanová, H. Březinová, J. Malcome-Davies, Liberec-Praha, 2017
S. Jansone: Textile Imprints in Grobiņa Fabrics and their possible uses M. Brunori-V. Sonnati-I. Degano-S. Bracci: The Coffin Cloth of Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor (†1313) A diagnostic investigation and conservation intervention III. MIDDLE AGES E. Retournard: Textiles for Miners and Mining Archaeological textiles from the 12th to 14th centuries from Brandes-en-Oisans,