The antiquity and social implications of early twisted fibre technology
Karen Hardy (Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow) will be the speaker of this Palaeolithic Seminar.
The concept of using flexible fibres paved the way for the expansion of composite technology which, in its simplest form, involves joining one artefact to another one by binding them together. The next stage, which involved the development of twisted fibre string or rope of unlimited length, also led to the emergence of looping technology, the simplest form of weaving. The implications of this are so significant that twisted fibre working should be considered as a foundational technology that enabled human society to develop. The social implications of fibre twisting and the secondary technology of looping are also likely to have had huge implications on human behaviour and sociality as the demand for twisted fibres and its very labour-intensive nature rapidly became one of the most time-consuming activities throughout the lives of the manufacturers, likely beginning at some point in the Lower Palaeolithic and continuing throughout prehistory and history, only ceasing recently. Tentative evidence for the use of fibres exists in the Lower Palaeolithic and includes possible perforated items, but from the Middle Palaeolithic onwards these become more abundant. To use perforated items, they had to be strung or attached, and the only way to do this, was by using thin fibre string. The archaeological evidence is combined with examples of modern traditional string manufacture, to investigate the functional and social implications of this technology.