Clay bearing a textile imprint together with a cast
Bones reveal first shoe-wearers BBC - August 24, 2005
Clay bearing a textile imprint together with a cast
June 14, 2000 - BBC
Woven clothing was being produced on looms 27,000 years ago, far earlier than had been thought, scientists say.
It had been thought that the first farmers developed weaving 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.
But Professor Olga Soffer of the University of Illinois, is about to publish details in the journal Current Anthropology of 90 fragments of clay that have impressions from woven fibres.
Prof Soffer first revealed her findings in previous research when she said that a 25,000 year old figurine was wearing a woven hat.
If confirmed, this work will change our understanding of distant ancestors, the so-called Ice Age hunters of the Upper Palaeolithic Stone Age.
Accidental imprint
The evidence was obtained from a number of sites in the Czech Republic.
They were the sporadic homes of the Gravettian people who roamed between Southern Russia and Spain between 22,000 and 29,000 years ago scratching out a living on a semi-frozen landscape.
Some of the fibre impressions may have been made accidentally, such as by sitting on a fresh clay floor or when wet clay was carried in woven bags.
"Other impressions may have been caused by deliberate action, such as lining a basket with clay to make it watertight," said Professor Soffer.
A detailed examination of the impressions reveals a large variety of weaving techniques. There are open and closed twines, plain weave and nets. Professor Soffer told BBC News Online that twining can be done by hand but plain weave needed a loom.
It may be that many stone artefacts found in settlements may not be objects of art as had been supposed but parts of an ancient loom, which should now be considered as the first machine to be made after the wheel and aids such as the axe, club, and flint knife.
Women's work
This research will force a re-evaluation of our view of ancient man, who lived tens of thousands of years ago, before the last Ice Age had ended and before the invention of agriculture.
The traditional view is of the male Ice Age hunters working in groups to kill large prey such as mammoths. But this may be a distorted and incomplete view of their lives.
All that scientists have from these ancient times are mostly solid remains such as stone, ivory and bone. Now they have evidence of textiles.
The discovery that they developed weaving as early as 27,000 years ago means that we must consider the role that women and children may have played more carefully.
The possibility that they made nets has fascinating implications according to Professor Soffer. It may be that nets were used by women and children to catch small prey such as hares and foxes.
By catching food this way, women and children could have made all the difference to their communities' food budgets, allowing a surplus to be generated that permitted society to grow.
Further revelations are to be expected in this area of research. There are recent reports that fragments of burnt textiles have been found adhering to pieces of flint.
February 2, 2000 - Eureka Alert - Champaign, Ill.
Archaeologists have discovered what the well-dressed Ice Age woman wore on ritual occasions. Her outfit, however, including accessories, doesn't resemble anything Wilma Flintstone ever wore, or, for that matter, any of our carved-in-stone conceptions of "paleofashion."
Instead, the threads of at least some Ice Age women included caps or snoods, belts and skirts, bandeaux (banding over the breasts) and bracelets and necklaces -- all constructed of plant fibers in a great variety of cloth, from twined and basket wear to plain weaves. While styling varied across Eurasia, the finest weaves are "comparable to not only Neolithic but even later Bronze and Iron Age products, or, in fact, to thin cotton and linenwear worn today," Olga Soffer, James Adovasio and David Hyland wrote in an article to be published in Current Anthropology.
The evidence for Ice Age summer fashions comes in part from 80 textile impressions Soffer found on tiny clay fragments in the Czech Republic. The impressions are "the earliest evidence for cordage and textile production in the world and reflect technologies heretofore associated with much later periods," the archaeologists wrote. Soffer, a professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois and a pioneer in the study of Upper Paleolithic life ways, compared the impressions to the representation of clothing on the so-called "Venus" figurines, which also date to the Gravettian period, roughly 25,000 years ago. "It suddenly struck us that what we were looking at under the microscope on these little fragments was precisely what was being shown as clothing on some of these 'naked ladies,' " she said, noting that in all likelihood the Ice Age seamstresses also carved the figurines that showed off their "exquisitely detailed" weaving, plaiting and coiling skills.
Among other things, the findings "get our ancestors out of the smelly furs and hides that they've been dressed in in our imagination, and into fine woven clothing -- at least in warm-weather months," said Soffer, lead researcher in the study of women's wear "B.V." ‚ "Before Vogue," as she likes to say. The new research also provides a new way of thinking about our ancestors, Soffer argues. Up to now we have had "a monotonous image of our deep past," she said, which consists of hide- and fur-wrapped "brave men with lances going after mammoths." But these are the activities of a minority of the population. "Where were the women and children?" Soffer asks. "Where are the old people and the infirm, and what are they doing? Surely a lot more than simply sitting around admiring their brave heroes."
Indeed, the new analysis sheds light on the major role that some women played in late Pleistocene societies. The women who turned out such fine garments, the archaeologists hypothesize, probably enjoyed high status in the society, their wear considered items of great value.
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