Exploring Ancient Textiles: Pushing the Boundaries of Established Methodologies

Description

Over the past 30 years, research on archaeological textiles has developed into an important field of scientific study. It has greatly benefited from interdisciplinary approaches, which combine the application of advanced technological knowledge to ethnographic, textual and experimental investigations. In exploring textiles and textile processing (such as production and exchange) in ancient societies, archaeologists with different types and quality of data have shared their knowledge, thus contributing to well-established methodology. In this book, the papers highlight how researchers have been challenged to adapt or modify these traditional and more recently developed analytical methods to enable extraction of comparable data from often recalcitrant assemblages. Furthermore, they have applied new perspectives and approaches to extend the focus on less investigated aspects and artefacts. The chapters embrace a broad geographical and chronological area, ranging from South America and Europe to Africa, and from the 11th millennium BC to the 1st millennium AD. Methodological considerations are explored through the medium of three different themes focusing on tools, textiles and fibres, and culture and identity. This volume constitutes a reflection on the status of current methodology and its applicability within the wider textile field. Moreover, it drives forward the methodological debates around textile research to generate new and stimulating conversations about the future of textile archaeology. Cover Contents List of contributors and editors List of figures List of tables Preface Introduction: Ancient tools and textiles – Thinking outside the box Part I Application of analytical techniques on tools 1 Preliminary remarks on some wear traces on Egyptian and Levantine textile tools 2 Visible tools, invisible craft: An analysis of textile tools in Iron Age Cornwall 3 Tools and their products: Spindle whorls decorated by yarn impressions from Iron Age Donja Dolina in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina 4 Shears in the ancient world: A comparison between the Iberian culture of southern Spain and Roman culture in northern Italy Part II Application of analytical techniques on textiles and fibres 5 Bast fibre production from the southern coast of Peru: The case of the La Yerba II and III sites 6 Humans, wool textiles, chronology, and provenance: A case study from the Orenburg region in the southern Urals, Russia 7 Using textiles to reconstruct looms: Burial shrouds from Deir el-Banat (Fayum, Egypt) 8 EDS analysis of Neolithic to Early Dynastic Egyptian woven cloth in the Bolton Museum collection 9 A post-excavation study using the archaeothanatological approach to determine the possibility of wrapping in Early Bronze Age burials of Britain Part III Cultural and personal identity 10 Beyond textile production: What textile tools can tell us about networks of craftspeople and cultural identity 11 Textiles and human needs: A discussion of textile production in the Hallstatt culture 12 Textile tools and textiles from the ninth–eighth century BC necropolis of Incoronata (Basilicata, Italy): Evidence for culture, status, and specialisation in a south Italian indigenous community 13 Translating sailcloth into raw materials, land, and labour Afterword