Visible Tools, Invisible Craft: An Analysis of Textile Tools across the Iron Age South Coast of Britain

Abstract

Textile tools are vital pieces of evidence in areas where few or no ancient textiles survive; while a lot of work has focused on the analysis of these tools, such as spindle whorls and loom weights, few studies have compared textile tools across large areas or various settlements. The prehistoric textile tools of Britain in particular have received very little attention, which has stymied our understanding of the textile industries prior to the social and cultural upheavals of the Roman conquest. This article presents the preliminary results of the author’s doctoral research analysing the Iron Age spindle whorls and loom weights from various settlements across the South coast of Britain and comparing the data with other sites within the same county and with sites from other counties. The initial results indicate a variety of textile traditions and organisation of textile production and craft specialisation.KeywordsTextile toolsTextile archaeologyBritish archaeologyIron ageCraft organisation