Textile Production in Prehistory Research Papers (original) (raw)

We are indebted to various sources for our knowledge of the pre-Roman Iron Age textile production on the territory of Austria (800-15 BC), such as well-preserved textiles, grave finds, textile tools, archaeological evidence in settlements and depictions of textile producers and their products.
We can find evidence of their activities in each settlement, where they lived and worked. Spindle whorls, loom weights and needles in graves may indicate that the deceased who were accompanied by these tools were textile workers, and furthermore point to a special social status these persons occupied in their communities. Particularly during the early Iron Age predominantly women have textile tools in their graves, sometimes even being accompanied by tool sets (e.g. spindles and knifes or spindles and needles). Depictions of textile work, such as on the Sopron Urn and the Bologna tintinnabulum, illustrate different stages of the textile production process from spinning to weaving.
The two case studies of Hallstatt and Dürrnberg demonstrate that textile production in Iron Age Austria was organised in different ways, providing diverse archaeological evidence concerning the producers, consumers and traders of textiles.

- by Karina Grömer
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Textiles, Production

"There is evidence that ever since early prehistory, textiles have always had more than simply a utilitarian function. Textiles express who we are - our gender, age, family affiliation, occupation, religion, ethnicity and social,... more

- by Margarita Gleba
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- Archaeology, Textiles, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Roman Textile Production

In this paper the exceptionally heavy loom weights originating from three Final Bronze and Early Iron Age sites (Wierzchosławice, Wojnicz, Janowice) are compared with “standard” Hallstatt A loom weights known from Kraków- Bieżanów 11 (all sites in Lesser Poland). Most of the discussed objects were found in features whose morphology and fill suggest they were the relics of warp-weighted looms or, alternatively, waste pits situated within houses, into which the remnants of such looms were secondarily thrown. The loom weights were subjected to multi-factor analysis, carried out based on a detailed technological and metrical database containing the information on artefacts from all the 4 sites. The aspects examined included, among others, the diversity of temper type in clay paste from which the loom weights were made in relation to local raw materials, or the relationship between the position of the hole in a loom weight and the shape and weight of the latter. Although heavy loom weights (approx. 3 kg) are relatively common in this part of Europe, no analogy could be found for artefacts as heavy as those from Wierzchosławice (some of which weigh nearly 6 kg). Their function has not been definitively explained, but it is little likely that they were used as typical weights for stretching the warp.

This book presents the results of the archaeological excavations conducted from 2006 to 2013 at the site of Kalnik-Igrišče. The excavations revealed extremely well-preserved material remains from the period between the 11th and the end of the 9th century BC. An extremely abundant amount of movable archaeological material was discovered – the majority was pottery, followed by various items made of clay, some textile production equipment, stone artefacts, metal objects, bones, and numerous carbonised plant remains. The research results provided insight into many segments of the everyday life of the Bronze Age people, such as pottery traditions, agriculture and nutrition, animal husbandry, textile production, construction of dwellings, and metal production, as well as the organisation of the settlement and dwellings.

- by Andreja Kudelić and +1
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- Archaeobotany, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Late Bronze Age archaeology, Textile Production in Prehistory

Textile production with its extensive chaîne opératoire, high labour inputs and the highest economic importance has undoubtedly been one of the key crafts in Bronze Age Greece. Its comprehensive understanding requires adopting different methodological approaches, such as studies of textile tools, workshops and dye-works and textual and iconographic investigations. More insights into textile work, the skill of textile workers and their specialisation may presently be grasped thanks to experimental approach to textile manufacturing.
In my paper I will argue that deliberately designed and controlled hands-on experience of modern actors in textile craft may also generate some analogies of how the textile work was organized, performed and apprenticed in the Prehistory, specifically in the Bronze Age Greece. I will draw on my five years’ experience in teaching about textile production in Bronze Age Greece at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw and I will refer to my research project in which I document, asses and monitor the progress of students of archaeology in gaining an initial ‘body knowledge’ of textile craft over a longer period of time. In these experiments copies of Aegean textile tools are applied and questions about ergonomics and difficulty of various operational sequences of textile work, especially weaving, are asked.

In the contemporary studies on the textile production experimental approach to the process of manufacturing textiles and the functional analysis of textile tools produce an important part of the research.
Thanks to the pioneer archaeological experiments conducted within the Tools and Textiles – Texts and Contexts (TTTC) Project of the Danish National Research Foundation's Centre for Textile Research in Copenhagen the most important technical parameters of the textile tools were acknowledged. During these experiments some copies of prehistoric Aegean spindle-whorls and loom weights were reproduced, tested and analysed in terms of their functionality. In the result the weight and the thickness of a loom weight were recognized as two crucial technical parameters directly influencing the quality of a fabric. The optimal set up of the warp weighted loom was estimated and the relation between the quality of warp threads and their optimal tension recognized. Moreover, the tests suggested that there is a possibility to approximate, what yarns and what fabrics respectively might have been produced with specific textile tools.
Textile production in the Bronze Age Greece is the main subject of my research carried in the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw. Experimental approach to the textile techniques, specifically weaving, is applied together as a research and a didactic method of teaching. The experimenters are mostly students, who attend the teaching courses on prehistoric weaving techniques and who are supposed to learn the basic “body knowledge” of weaving and the textile terminology by practice.
In these experiments, mostly of experiential character, copies of loom weights from the Bronze Age Greece are also employed. Students first model themselves several copies of a chosen artefacts and afterwards they weave with different sets of loom weights. In that way students gain ‘hands on experience’ in weaving, being able to understand the aforementioned relation between loom weights and fabrics by practice.
We have to our disposal several sets of copies of Minoan discoid, spherical and cuboid weights, three types of Late Helladic spools and finally two sets of Early Bronze Age loom weights from Tiryns. The last two sets consist of loom weights unique in the Aegean: a crescent like (“banana”) weights and heavy cylinders with three perforations. Both sets where several times applied for weaving, which allows for some observations on their functionality. More tests, including further modelling of artefacts, are planned for this winter/spring semester.
In my paper I present insofar results of our experiments with copies of Early Bronze Age tools, though I have to emphasize that the students are not experienced weavers and therefore their observations have to be analysed with a special caution. I refer to the significant difference between the parameters of the discoid loom weights and heavy crescent shape weights, and cylinders. I discuss difficulties in the proper reconstruction of the way in which these two last types of weights might have been set up on the warp weighted loom; the use of crescent shape weights for twill weaving and the possibility of using “bananas” and cylinders as somehow more universal weights in the process of textile manufacturing.

Textile craft with its complex technology and socio-cultural significance has been a key craft in the societies of Bronze Age Europe and the Mediterranean. However complex and socially and economically important, textile technology has often been considered as being rather traditional and non-innovative throughout many centuries of the Bronze Age.
The present session aims to examine textile technology in search for its traditional and innovative elements, through investigating the evidence of archaeological textiles, textile tools and their diachronic changes, botanical and faunal environment, textual sources and imagery of textiles and cloths. The session will focus on the Bronze Age in Europe and the Mediterranean, although papers referring to transitional periods from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age, and from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age will also be welcomed.
We particularly welcome all papers discussing various aspects of traditions and innovations traced in textile technology, especially these regarding raw materials and their processing, textile techniques, textile tools and equipment, organisation of textile production and dynamics of its specialisations, cross-cultural and cross-craft interactions, and changes of textile craft in relation to socio-cultural transformations of the past societies.