Abstract
My PhD research focuses on the social context of cloth from the Neolithic to Bronze Age with case studies from the Alpine area. One aspect of this is the interrelationship of the technologies used to create flexible, thin sheets of material that can be wrapped, folded, shaped and tied. This includes fibre-based cloth such as textiles, netting and twining as well as animal skins (leather and fur). This short report summarises preliminary research findings stemming from the examination of animal skins from the Bronze Age Hallstatt salt mines. These mines offer an ideal preservation environment for cloth as the salt inhibits the action of microorganisms that would otherwise lead to the decay of organic materials, such as plant and animal fibres, and animal skins. Of these the least commonly preserved in contexts outside the salt mines are animal skins, making finds of this type significant for my research.
Highlights
My PhD research focuses on the social context of cloth from the Neolithic to Bronze Age with case studies from the Alpine area
There is some evidence to suggest that the salt deposits were exploited in the Neolithic around 5000 BC, the earliest mine galleries date from the Middle Bronze Age, about 1400 BC, with further important galleries belonging to the early Iron Age (Reschreiter 2005: 13)
The woven woollen and linen cloth finds from the Bronze Age mines are mainly natural coloured with one example of an olive-dyed woollen fabric in twill weave (Grömer 2005: 20)
Summary
My PhD research focuses on the social context of cloth from the Neolithic to Bronze Age with case studies from the Alpine area. This includes the colour and texture, dimensions and thickness, sewing, seams and edges, use and reuse of these artefacts These fragments and artefacts have not been studied before and add to the previously published findings of animal skin artefacts from the Bronze Age salt mines, most recently published in a number of articles by Barth (1993; 1992; 1989) and will be discussed in comparison to recent analysis of the textile finds (Grömer 2005) from the same site and in relation to the context of animal skins in the Bronze Age. The artefacts I examined come from the Christian-Tuschwerk Bronze Age mine gallery and were studied and documented at the Vienna Naturhistorisches Museum. The collection awaits a full analysis and report by the excavators
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