Tools and Textiles - Texts and Contexts Examination of spinning and weaving samples (original) (raw)
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Note: This paper was originally published in the January 2014 EXARC Journal (http://journal.exarc.net/issue-2014-1). An abridged version was printed in the 2014 EXARC Digest. Abstract This paper takes the form of a critical analysis of archaeological experiments using spinning tools. The archaeological experiments regarding whorl weight and wool spinning of the Tools and Textiles – Texts and Contexts project, through the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research, are examined with respect to a number of variables. These variables include the experience of the technicians, the details of the reconstructed spindles, and technical aspects of preparation and spinning methods. The variables and their implications are insufficiently addressed in the technical reports of the experiments, and further consideration and elucidation would enhance the interpretation of experimental results. Archaeological experimentation of this type would also benefit from the incorporation of ethnographic observation to provide contextual information and comparative behavioral data. The assumptions inherent in modern approaches to fibre technology and their influence on archaeological experimentation are considered, with a view toward encouraging a more self-conscious approach to the analysis of fibre experiments.
MAKING PREHISTORIC CLOTH: EXPERIMENTAL ARCHAEOLOGY AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Assemblage , 2021
Stylistic typologies dominate the way textile tools are interpreted for Iron Age Britain. Though this analysis may be useful for relating multiple categories of artefacts across time and space, it does not produce adequate data for understanding tool function or technological variability. To understand how Iron Age people produced cloth with warp-weighted loom technology, we must also understand how textile tools may have related to each other. The chaîne opératoire of textile production is complex and its interpretation cannot be understood in simple terms. Because there are so few preserved textiles from this prehistoric period, what can be learned of textile production must be investigated through the tools from a functional perspective. An analysis of loomweights, spindle whorls, long-handled combs, and needles, and the range of their functional characteristics, has been the primary focus of the author's doctoral study. Though this research has revealed vital information about the life history of the respective objects, a functional analysis is still restricted in how it can answer certain questions. When used appropriately, experimental archaeology affords the ability to assess variables within physical space that can bear fruitful insights otherwise unobtainable in theoretical considerations. This paper summarises an experiment involving triangular clay weights, spindle whorls, and long-handled combs that are based on the small finds from Danebury hillfort. Part of this summary includes personal experiences as an experimenter and a crafter and how these experiences encouraged a discussion of technique. Furthermore, both experimental archaeology and experiential perspectives are shown to have interpretive value when relating these results to the archaeological evidence.
Handicraft knowledge applied to archaeological textiles
The Textile Research Centre, CTF Centrum för …
87 Textile Journal Handicraft Knowledge Applied to Archaeological Textiles Lena Hammarlund Orangerigatan 22 412 66 Gothenburg, Sweden hammarlund@ hem. utfors. se Introduction Professor Lise Bender Jørgensen The Swedish School of Textiles, THS Craftsmanship and ...
An introduction to the investigation of archaeological textile tools
In this introduction the main research approaches applied to textile tools will be outlined. The ways in which the different groups of artefacts have been studied in the past will be investigated, as well as how more innovative approaches came into being in recent decades and, finally, which research potentials have not yet been fully explored. This chapter aims to present the research produced by scholars of textile tools and why and how, if at all, this pool of knowledge has influenced Aegean and Near Eastern archaeological research in general. First, the chapter will provide an overview of the research approaches and key issues related to textile tools in the Bronze Age Eastern Mediterranean, also in comparison to central and northern Europe. Second, it will discuss the research on various textile tools. Finally, the chapter will conclude by proposing a shared framework to ameliorate the scholarly work on textile tools in the future. Published in in E. Andersson Strand and M.-L. Nosch (eds.), Tools, Textiles and Contexts. Investigating textile production in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Bronze Age. Ancient Textiles Ser. Vol. 21. Oxford: Oxbow, 1–23.
Open Archaeology
After the development of an experimental protocol concerning an enigmatic tool rarely recognized archaeologically and potentially used as a sword beater, that is, blades in bone or wood, we were able to establish certain diagnostic criteria. These tools recur in sites in the south of France and Italy, for example, dated to 3023 BC. If our experimental reference work is extended, we may be able to determine which fibers were used for textile production during the Neolithic. This could reveal a virtually unknown field in the prehistoric economy and shed light upon the procurement and the use of plant and animal resources developed by populations living in a period when domestication was just beginning.
Etruscan textile tools: spinning and weaving in Southern Etruria
VI PURPUREAE VESTES. INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM TEXTILES AND DYES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ECONOMY AND SOCIETY Padova - Este - Altino, Italy. 17 – 20 October 2016 The high quality of Etruscan textiles is well known and attested by the Tarquinian paintings and sculptures as well as the decorative pottery created throughout Etruria (in modern Central Italy). They show the wide variety of fabrics and occasionally the richness and attention to detail that went into creating the clothes that were once worn. Less well known are the spinning and weaving tools that were necessary to create these fabrics. This is the starting point and background of the European project called TexSEt (Textiles in Southern Etruria) 2014-2016. The TexSEt project has had the main aim to study the spinning and weaving tools of the Etruscan-Italic world, connecting to the analyses of preserved archaeological textiles. The research further has integrated use wear analyses, experimental archaeology combined with an ethnographic approach to explore what constituted pre-Etruscan and Etruscan textile tool kits and the range of qualities that could be produced by these tools, as well as looking for changes in the chronological and/or geographical record. In this paper I present the results obtained in the project. Observations on the Etruscan spinning and weaving tools and activities will be shown. I will start from an analysis based on CTR (Centre for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen) principles: the morphological-technological study combined with recent advances in textile experimental archaeology now make it possible to ascertain the function of textile tools, and the types of textiles that could have been produced at specific sites with specific tools. This provides valuable information on the nature of cloth manufacture, even in areas where the textiles themselves have rarely survived. This paper will consider the insights that can be gained by applying this approach.