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124 MARGRETHE HALD: ANCIENT DANISH TEXTILES FROM BOGS AND BURIALS Fig. 116. Greek women working with wool. Lekythos with black figures c. 560 B.C. (after Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art 1931). Gra:ske kvinder ved uldarbejde. Lekythos med sorle figurer fra ca. 560 f.Kr. (efter Bulletin of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1931). CHAPTER III RA W MATERIALS AND SPINNING It is difficult to say with any certainty how old the art of textile manufacture is in Scandinavia because the evidence is obviously very incomplete. Textiles are made from easily perishable raw materials which are relatively quickly worn out through use, and which only avoid de- struction when in contact with soil and moisture if the circumstances are particularly fortun- ate. Archaeological finds yield little information as to the tools used for making textiles, but we have to turn to these sparse sources if we are to gain some impression of how the first textiles were made and with what. A useful supplement is provided by those peoples nowadays and in the recent past whose textile handicrafts have avoided modern influences, and whose skills are often close to those which existed in prehistoric times. Moreover, the working methods still to be traced in peasant cultures often shed light on ancient textiles, as pre-industrial techniques have survived in out of the way places and been faithfully handed down from ge- neration to generation. I use the term "textile" (derived from the Latin texere = to plait) in the broadest sense, em- bracing not only plaiting and weaving but sewing, preparatory steps, carding and spinning etc. We cannot assume that a fully developed handicraft has reached us from another cultural environment. Textile skills have evolved out of different stages at different times in different parts of the world. The types of textile made in a given locality would depend on the raw materials to hand. In the present chapter, then, the first subject to be discussed will be the dif- ferent materials from which we suppose yarn was spun in prehistoric Denmark. ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE FIBRES Certain tools were necessary, for example baskets and carrying nets, even when Man lived by hunting and fishing, or by gathering edible plants and berries. Nets, snares, and lines were needed for trapping and fishing, and a bow had to have a string. The kill not only provided meat, it met other needs, also as far as textiles were concerned. Plants supplied strips of bark, CHAPTER III. RAW MATERIALS AND SPINNING 125 bast, vines, tough stalks, and the like - all fairly pliant and strong - which could be used in their natural state or twined or "spun". SEWING THREAD People living in arctic climates have to wear skins, and these are sewn into garments with tendon thread collected from the carcases of various large animals. In some regions reindeer tendons are used, while in others the tendons of seal and whale are also utilised. Several accounts of how the tendons are prepared exist1), and the one written by Gudmund Hatt may be summarised as follows. The tendons are stretched on an osier and dried. When they are to be used, they are roughly split possibly after softening by beating with some hard object, after which the lengths are finely split and smoothed with the teeth, moistened with spit and twisted with the hand against the thigh. Several threads are twisted together into a long thong which is then doubled and twisted against the cheek2). Strips of skin are still used for sewing both among the Indians of North America and farmers in Norway and Sweden; the Giljak folk use strips offish skin3). G. Hatt considers that threads of tendon indicate a later stage than strips of skin, and I agree with his suggestion. According to U. T. Sirelius the Ostjak and Wogul people used both tendon thread and nets of nettle fibre as late as 1904, and both materials were prepared by a beating process, among other things, for which the same type of club was used4). A number of skin garments recovered from Danish bogs are sewn with strips of hide, while in other cases the "thread" appears to be of some other substance. According to analyses made by C. Overgaard Nielsen it is possible that tendon and gut have been used as thread as well; unfortunately the condition of the skin capes is such that no definite conclusions can be drawn. Little is known about the use of gut. Nicolaes Wits en wrote in 17055) that the Samoyeds sewed their garments of skin with gut thread, but G. Hatt6) considered this informa- tion to be based on a misunderstanding; however, Hatt presented no argument to bear out his repudiation. Falk and Torp write that the basic etymological meaning of "garn" (yarn) is a cord of gut7), and we all know that gut has always been widely used for various musical instru- ments. Through the latter usage it is known that gut stands a considerable direct strain, but that it is extremely sensitive to moisture. Perhaps, then, if gut were the original sewing thread it would have been superseded by a more resistant substance8) - the question remains an open one. NETTLE AND OTHER PLANT FIBRES The fact that nettle thread and tendon thread have existed side by side through the ages is extremely interesting. And a number of things would seem to indicate that under certain na- tural conditions the nettle is a far older spinning material than wool or flax, and in reality belongs to the same culture stage as the tendon thread. Briefly told, the Wogul and Ostjak people prepare the nettles for thread as follows: the nettle plants are thoroughly dried, they are then moistened and split with a knife of pine or bone (nimmiids). The pith is removed from the woody stalks with the teeth, and other useless organic matter is discarded. The outer fibrous part, the sclerenchyma, is then softened by beating - either with a club or by pestle and mortar, the tow is removed by rubbing the fibre between the hands or with a sort of scraping knife9). U. T. Sirelius thinks that the same tools were used in Finland for preparing flax in the past, and even in 1921the Mordvin used a stamp or mortar to brake flax 10). The striking part of 126 MARGRETHE HALD: ANCIENT DANISH TEXTILES FROM BOGS AND BURIALS this description is that no retting is done; the fibres are simply separated from the rest of the plant by beating, scraping and rubbing. It is reminiscent of an account collected by the Natio- nal Museum's Ethnological Surveys in 1942 on the use of nettle fibresll). An old man related how as a boy he had watched over cattle grazing in woodland, and how when his whip went to bits, he picked dry nettle stalks and rubbed them between his hands until only the fibres remained, and these he used to mend his whip with. The method sounds rather primitive but people living close to nature would soon make use of it. Nettle fibres are used for spinning up to the present day, and nettle thread for sewing skin garments. According to Gudmund Hatt, the Giljak and Aino people sewed their dog furs and other garments - even footwear - with nettle thread 12), and it is as if they were unaware of ten- don for thread. The Chippewa Indians used nettle fibres (Urticastrum divaricatum), too, and cords from this species are said to be very fine and strong. Plants dried in the field were the best, but freshly cut stalks were sometimes used. The finest yarn was for weaving but "nettle threads are used for much else besides, such as fishing nets, snares for rabbits and other ani- mals13)". Vegetable matter decomposes far quicker than animal matter in soil, and because nettle fibre is considered to be even less resistant to moisture than flax, there is little likelihood of finding much direct evidence of its earliest forms. Nevertheless, archaeological discoveries have yielded one or two scraps of evidence, for example at Siotsh\llj near Stege, in Denmark, clay bearing the impression ofafinely woven fabric was excavated, dating from the late Stone Age passage-grave culture (2000-1800 B.C.)14). We have seen that all Danish Bronze Age tex- Fig. 117. Late Bronze Age nettle fabric. Voldtofte (26436). 1/1. Voldtofte. Yngre bronzealder. Nreldetl2lj. (26436). 'I •. CHAPTER III. RAW MATERIALS AND SPINNING 127 tiles are very coarse and woven with unevenly spun woollen yarn. Therefore the evidence of a finely woven Stone Age textile was surprising, but it sufficed to suppose that the impression was of a piece of linen, because a cow's horn shaped as a flaskI5), excavated in a Stone Age settlement in South Funen, bore traces of an organic substance which Bille Gram identified as flax 16). However, the dating of this find to the late Stone Age has since proved uncertain, in that potsherds from the Iron Age have been recovered from the same site. And flax, according to Gudmund Hatt, has not been established with certainty among Danish finds prior to the pre- Roman Iron AgeI7), therefore we dare not reckon with flax as a spinning material in the Stone Age. On the other hand, the possibility that Neolithic folk in Denmark used nettle fibre seems more likely, and the finely woven fabric that has left its impression on the clay find from Slotshli'j could well have been woven from nettle thread. There are two more pieces of evidence which may show that the nettle provided thread in prehistoric Scandinavia.

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