Textiles and Prehistory
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ARCHAEOLOGY SOUTHWEST CONTINUE ON TO THE NEXT PAGE FOR YOUR magazineFREE PDF (formerly the Center for Desert Archaeology) is a private 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization that explores and protects the places of our past across the American Southwest and Mexican Northwest. We have developed an integrated, conservation- based approach known as Preservation Archaeology. Although Preservation Archaeology begins with the active protection of archaeological sites, it doesn’t end there. We utilize holistic, low-impact investigation methods in order to pursue big-picture questions about what life was like long ago. As a part of our mission to help foster advocacy and appreciation for the special places of our past, we share our discoveries with the public. This free back issue of Archaeology Southwest Magazine is one of many ways we connect people with the Southwest’s rich past. Enjoy! Not yet a member? Join today! 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Teague, Arizona State Museum fNTR0DUCTl0N A·· RCHAE:OL:OGfSTSsolvS EXTILES ARE EVERYWHERE IN OUR LIVES, but they are rarely .. the puzzle ofthe past by T found by archaeologists. Like other organic artifacts, textiles decay rapidly studying its pieces: ~rtif;cts,s. )lch as under most environmental conditions. In the Southwest, we are fortunate to have . pottery ~nd flake(Hston~; thousands of surviving pieces, ranging from very decorative laces to the plainest of fabrics. These often-fragmentary remnants shed light on a broad range of archaeo logical questions. At every stage, from fiber to fabric, textiles carry with them vast amounts of information about the people who made and used them. Preservation Most surviving Southwestern textiles are recovered from dry caves, including the knotted nets and twined bags found in Archaic levels at McEuen Cave and an elaborately patterned, interlinked fabric from fourteenth-century cliff dwellings at Tonto National Monument. A smaller number of specimens have been preserved by fire , most impressively a fine, weft-wrapped carbonized fragment from the eleventh century found at Snaketown, south of Phoenix. Other situations which preserve cloth are not common in the Southwest. Airless environments, such as bogs or lake bottoms, can provide remarkable preservation-but are not typical of the region. Fabrics can also be preserved by the leaching of minerals from metal artifacts, which are quite rare in the Southwest. Archaeologists have been documenting and studying textiles in the Southwest for years. As new pieces of textiles are recovered, additional questions are posed, prompting the reexamination of the role textiles played in the lives of the prehistoric residents of the area. Fibers and Yarns Fibers are the basic materials from which textiles are made. Between 550 and 700 different plants have been used in the production of textiles in the Southwest. Animals have provided fur, hair, and feathers. Asbestos has been used as a fiber for special purposes. The archaeological presence of a particular type of fiber can reflect wild plant availability, the use of a new domesticate such as cotton or turkeys, the direction and intensity of interaction with distant groups, or changes in the cultur al contexts in which fibers are used. The earliest people of the Southwest created textiles from locally available fibers. Hair from humans and domesticated dogs was incorporated into yarns for fabrics, and both rabbit fur and bird feathers were used in twined robes. These mate rials were readily available and their insulating value and easy preparation made them ideal for use in early textile production. Fibers from wild plants were also very important. Plant leaves and stems usual ly contain long, coarse fibers. These fibers are held together in the leaf or stem by gums that must be removed through processing. Important plants used in prehis- Looping Crossing and Interlacing Linking Wrapping R.ecrossing Twining Fibers can be combined in dif ferent ways to make textiles. Woven fabrics rely on interlacing elements. Interacting structures have elements joined by linking, looping, wrapping, and other methods. Prehistoric residents of the American Southwest toric Southwestern fabrics include the leaves of yucca, agave, sotol, and beargrass, and the relied on a variety of textiles stems of milkweed, hemp, mesquite, cliff rose, and willow. Long fibers made it possible to for clothing, containers, and spin them into yarns without tools, simply by rolling them along the thigh with the hand. tools (illustration courtesy of "Hand spinning" is nothing more than drawing out fibers and twisting to hold them Lynn Teague). together. After about A.D. 700, it was a seed fiber- cotton-that dominated most Southwestern textile assemblages north of what is now Mexico. Cotton has many advantages over other plant materials. Cotton fibers are not encased in gummy substances and often are only lightly attached to the accompany ing seeds within the boll. Preparation is therefore easy, and the resulting yarns are both soft and strong. However, the short fibers of cotton require a tool for the preparation of yarn. In the prehistoric Southwest, as in much of the world, this tool was the hand spindle. The most widely distributed version of the spindle, and almost certainly the earliest, was similar to what was used his torically in the pueblos. The spindle was a straight stick with at least one end-the one that the fiber rotated upon-shaped into a point. Whorls were fixed on the spindle shaft to maintain the rapid rotation needed to put twist into fiber. Initially in the Southwest, whorls were perforated disks made from wood, horn, gourd, or worked sherds. The spindle whorl was rotated on the thigh. Later, modeled clay whorls were introduced into the area below the Mogollon Rim from Mesoamerica; the shorter spindles on which these were mounted were supported vertically below the spinner on a firm surface, perhaps a bowl or sherd. Fabric Structure Once fibers are prepared and spun, it is possible to combine the resulting yarns, or ele ments, into a textile. There are many ways of h'ont page: Interlinked shirt from Tonto Ruins, known as the Tonto shirt (Arizona State Museum, University ofArizona, E. B. Sayles, photographel: ASM negative no. 1419). Right: At first glance this blanket from Painted Cave appears to be lace. Closer examination reveals the blanket was painted by a skilled craftsperson to look like lace work (Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, E. B. Sayles, photographel: ASM negative no. 1415). Page 2 lae:OIC)2:U Southwest volume I), Number + Left: Woven fabrics, such as this example of weft wrapped openworkv could be constructed easier and faster after the invention of the loom (Arizona State Museum, University ofArizona, E. B. Sayles, photographer. ASM negative no. 1426). Below: Nets were created by loops and knots. They were used for hunting and domestic doing so. Felted fabrics consist of loose fibers purposes (photo courtesy processed to form a fabric that lacks an internal of Lynn Teague). organized structure. The other forms of textiles are all structured and their study can tell us a great deal about the techniques used in the con struction and function of finished fabrics, the held some of the elements social identities of weavers, and their social and in place while the work pro economic interactions. ceeded. However, none of Irene Emery developed the terminology used these fabrics required the to describe textiles. In The Primary Structure of use of a true loom. Fabrics, she noted that structured fabrics are com- L __ ~:~~~~~~~ ____J The loom was intro posed of elements (such as yarns, threads, duced among the Hohokam strands, cords, or thongs) that are worked together system and Mogollon about A.D. 700 and was readily accepted. At atically. There are only a few ways in which elements can their simplest, looms are frameworks on which one set of be interworked. Woven fabrics rely on interlacing ele yarns (the warp) is held under tension. A simple mecha ments, with one element passing immediately above or nism, such as a stick, is used to move the warp threads to below another. Interacting structures involve more varied permit another set of elements (the weft) to be interwoven. techniques for joining the elements and can include link Three basic types oflooms have been used prehistorical ing, looping, wrapping, crossing and recrossing, and twin ly and historically in the Southwest: the backstrap, horizon ing. An easy way to visualize this is to examine the differ tal, and vertical looms. Backstrap looms, originating in ence between a woven (interlaced) fabric, such as the Mexico, were probably used to make textiles in the material used for shirts or blue jeans, and knitted (inter Southwest soon after A.D. 700. The warp of these looms is acted) materials, such as socks or sweaters. not pulled tight by a stable framework; instead, the pull is The earliest recovered Archaic period fabrics in the between a stationary object-such as a tree, a pole, or a wall Southwest date to about 400 B.C.