Susanna Harris

From the Parochial to the Universal: Comparing Cloth Cultures in the Bronze Age

The aim of this research is to compare the cloth cultures of Europe and Egypt in the Bronze Age and New Kingdom. The comparison focuses on the fourteenth century cal bc and includes four geographically separate areas, including the oak coffin burials of southern Scandinavia, the Hallstatt salt mines of central Europe, Late Minoan Crete, and the tombs and towns of the later Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. The comparative approach can bring insights even when applied to unconnected cultures or regions. However, in this study I concentrate on a restricted chronological period and areas that were connected, directly or indirectly, by widespread networks of trade or exchange. The concept of cloth cultures is used to include both textiles and animal skins as these were closely related materials in the prehistoric past. Information was gathered according to the following categories: raw materials, including textile fibre, and species of skins; fabric structure and thread count (only for textiles); decoration and fi...

Textiles, Cloth, and Skins: The Problem of Terminology and Relationship

Abstract The problem of terminology and relationship is something I first came across when researching cloth and skins in the societies of prehistoric Europe. I wanted to understand the relationship between animal skins, linen and wool textiles, netting and twined cloth, yet I found there was no adequate way of describing these as a group of related materials. I was faced with quite separate books and journals on “cloth” or “textiles” from those on “skins” or “leather.” The content of these publications were usually defined by raw materials, technology or style. Such a separation made it difficult to understand the relationship between these materials at any given time or place. From this problem, I recognized the value of classifying these related materials by their physical similarity and pattern of use. To do this I have used the term cloth-type material to refer to all flexible, thin sheets of material that can be wrapped, folded, and shaped, but excluding materials related through structure, technology or raw material that do not share these qualities. This classification is significant to consider how cloth-type materials have the potential to be used in similar ways, yet through cultural values and choices have distinct roles and values.

From Stones to Gendered Bodies: Regional Differences in the Production of the Body and Gender on the Copper Age Statue-Menhirs of Northern Italy and the Swiss Valais

AbstractMuch research has been carried out on identifying gendered iconography on statue-menhirs. This paper seeks to develop this perspective by considering the broader body concepts. Body concepts are of interest to archaeologists because they are closely connected to issues of sex, gender, and age. By investigating stone sculptures, however, we are looking at an ideological view of the body that was produced by reducing the stone from its natural form into a statue-menhir. The presence of bodily features on the statue-menhirs suggests that it was important to construct a body, and that certain aspects of the body were chosen to be represented, either through the size and shape of the stone or iconography, while others were neglected. We propose this is a significant means by which stones were made into bodies and gendered beings. To investigate body concepts, we pose two questions: how was a statue-menhir body made, and how was it gendered? By following the reduction sequence of the stone as the techni...

The first plant bast fibre technology: identifying splicing in archaeological textiles

Recent research into plant bast fibre technology points to a Neolithic European tradition of working fibres into threads by splicing, rather than draft spinning. The major issue now is the ability of textile specialists and archaeobotanists to distinguish the technology of splicing from draft-spun fibres. This paper defines the major types of splicing and proposes an explicit method to observe, identify and interpret spliced thread technology. The identification of spliced yarns is evaluated through the examination of textiles from Europe, Egypt and the Near East. Through the application of this method, we propose that the switch from splicing to draft spinning plant fibres occurred much later than previously thought. The ramifications of this shift in plant processing have profound implications for understanding the chaîne opératoire of this ubiquitous and time-consuming technology, which will have to be factored into social and economic reconstructions of the past.

From value to desirability: the allure of worldly things

ABSTRACT In this paper, the author takes the approach that value is a judgment that people make about things based on desire, and the potential of the effects those things engender. On this basis, she argues that there are five principle ways that people desire objects: through material properties; in expense and exclusivity; as materials with conspicuous, sensory appeal; through object biography; and where objects can be substituted one for another, an attribute known as fungibility. These principles provide a multiple perspective through which to investigate why and how people desire things. This approach to value is explored through a case study of the desirability of textiles during the emergence of the early urban centres in central and northern Italy (900–500 BC) within its wider geographical setting. Addressing desirability, rather than fixed concepts of luxury, wealth or prestige, opens up questions as to how and why materials and objects are valued across social matrices and according to changing ambitions during the life course.

Sensible dress: the sight, sound, smell and touch of Late Ertebølle Mesolithic cloth types

The aim of this article is to investigate the sight, sound, smell and touch of different cloth types in the Late Ertebolle of southern Scandinavia and to argue that such an approach provides stimulating new insights into an area of material culture that has previously been studied by archaeologists in a highly empirical manner. The archaeological evidence drawn together in this article points to this as a time when furs and skin products were of prime importance and plant fibres were the basis for knotted nets, looped cloth and basketry. In the archaeological literature these cloth types are usually treated separately and described according to the species of raw materials, such as pine marten fur, or the technology of their production, such as couched button-hole stitch. Using an experiment where participants are asked to handle modern cloth types and answer structured questionnaires, it is possible to create a sensory description of these cloth types. These descriptive results are then used to reconsider aspects of cloth and clothing in the Late Ertebolle of southern Scandinavia. By moving from the standard technological description to a sensory description, the Mesolithic cloth types investigated in this article are placed within a sensory and phenomenological theoretical framework. The presentation of these results seeks to provide a new description of these materials and allow archaeologists to revaluate the culturally-embedded nature of cloth and clothing at that time.