I’m working on a little writing project, and rather than starting out with real research, which would involve trekking all the way down to the library, I thought I would start by asking you guys. How were early fabrics made. Not necessarily the first cloth, but early ones. Were they made from wool, or cotton, or what. I’m not particularly interested in the specific society, but more with the process. The more primitive the better.
Any other resources you could point me to with this and other similar info would be great!
Since sheep shed wool, by scraping against trees and bushes, I’d always heard the first cloth was felt. It can be picked up lying around any sheep ranch.
As a world renowned expert on such matters (i.e. I have been known to occasionally watch TV documentaries :D) I have heard linen often mentioned in reference to archaeological finds. I think flax grows widely in many parts of the world (but that is a guess)
Your name is “teasel”, which has been used by fullers for 10,000 years, and you’re asking us?
IIRC, the correct answer to your question is, “Nobody knows.” If you had asked, “How old are the earliest fabric remnants that have been found?” I think the answer would be, “Less than 5,000 years.” They found fabric remnants on that Italian Stone Age glacier fellow dating to the late Bronze Age, the Pyramids have linens in them that are about 4,000 years old, there were fabric scraps excavated in Hallstatt, and I believe that some of the Central Asian mummies had fabric scraps with them.
But you’re asking, “How were early fabrics made?” Obviously, they must have been made in generally the same way as modern fabrics–there are only so many ways you can combine a warp and a woof to get a length of fabric suitable for using as clothes. But looking at the many ways that different still-existing Stone Age cultures find to twist plant fibers together and make clothing, geez, your guess is as good as anybody else’s.
I think you’re still lookin’ at a trip to the library, sport.
http://www.csun.edu/~ms44278/neo_sa.htm
http://www.wisc.edu/arth/ah201/ted/NYT19991214.html
http://home.hollings.mmu.ac.uk/staff/dtyler/link_history.html
From personal observation the easy path to weaving is plaiting. You can braid three strands of grass or hair quite easily. Once you generalize plaiting then weaving is obvious. You can weave bark and grasses easily enough and get useful mats. The next revolution that is needed is twisting fibers into string. You can twist shorter fibers in to cords that are stronger and longer than the original fibers. Once you have string and you have woven mats you can see it might be nice to have woven string. To make this practical you need to have generalized spinning. You can spin with just your hands, but unless you have something to wrap the string around, the sting may come un twisted. You then learn to twist it around a stick. If you have a weight on the stick it is a distaff. This not only holds the thread, but is how you twist it. You get the fibers started twisting and you spin the distaff and twist it around the spindle. I don’t know who made the first distaff when or where, but they defined the role of women for thousands of years. It takes a lot of spinning to make enough yarn to cloth people. Since you can spin while hanging around your dwelling caring for children the women did so.
Some anthropologists are now saying this happened 40,000 years ago, much earlier than previously thought.