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Throughout most of human history, the majority of the materials used in everyday life (perhaps as much as 95 percent) were made of perishable fibers - wood, bark, plants, leather, fur and even feathers. Traditional archaeology has focused on objects made of stone, bone, metal and clay because those artifacts are more likely to survive than organic fibers. In recent years, though, scholars have put greater emphasis on studying the fragments of perishable technology that do survive. This is an improvement from the days when an early archaeologist who found linen mummy wrappings tore them into pieces to cushion pottery artifacts he was taking from an Egyptian tomb.
Some of the earliest known evidence of our ancient ancestors' fiber skills comes from tiny clay fragments found in an Upper Paleolithic site in Czechoslovakia. These fragments showed impressions of cordage bearing the kind of knots still commonly used for making nets. So we have physical evidence that dates back 28,000 years and probably goes back much farther, since the sophistication of the fiber impressions suggests that people had been making those nets for some time.
I tell this story to classes and in lectures to fiber groups, and we wonder: Were the marks made by sheaths used to make those pots easier to carry or to help cushion the contents? Were the fiber elements created for the sole purpose of decorating a non-fiber vessel? Were the containers meant for everyday use or for ceremonial purposes? What did the impressions represent to the people who made them? Even people who don't fish are fascinated by fishing nets, and by this connection to how our ancient (and not so ancient) ancestors fed themselves. And when they take up shuttle and gauge to learn how to work this knotted looping technique for themselves, they keep that fiber legacy alive.
Learn About Fuegian Coiling -- Click here to learn about looping over a core element.
Looping Workshop Topics
Lecture Topics
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