Ancient technologies: organic materials

The course offers the basic introduction to perishable material culture, specifically the evidence of textiles and leather products. The participants will be given information about the nature of this evidence, raw materials, production techniques and organisation of production. They will learn how to analyse, describe and document textiles and leather artefacts. They will learn about the indirect sources of knowledge, such as tools, remains of workplaces, iconography and experimental archaeology. They will be familiarised with the multidisciplinary approach to perishable material culture.

1. Introduction to perishable material culture and the concept of the missing majority. Methodology and interdisciplinary approaches: ethnographic studies and experimental archaeology, iconographic studies, scientific analyses.

2. Preservation of the organic evidence. Methods of exploration of organic finds. First aid before the conservation. Block lifting and laboratory excavations.

3. Preservation of the organic evidence: textile imprints on clay. Indirect evidence: textile tools, workplaces, iconography of textiles and textile production

4. Functionality of textile tools: spindle whorls and loom weights. Documentation of textile tools.

5. Documentation of textile finds: marco- and microscopic examination, visual grouping, basic parameters: diameter, twist-direction, twist angle, number of threads per cm

6. Leather as a raw material in the past. The assortment of leather finds. Indirect sources to the knowledge of former leather crafts (tools, iconographic and ethnographic studies, experimental archaeology).

7. Methods of skin processing into leather - introduction to tannage technologies (fat and smoke tannages, vegetable tannage, alum tawing, rawhide method). Archaeological evidence of tanning and tanneries. Preservation issues and post-excavation treatments.

8. Macro – and microscopic analysis of archaeological leather: basic parameters, species identification, observations of surface features.

9. Basic techniques of leather items production: cutting patterns, stitches and seams, decorating and finishing. Interpretation of traces on leather. The importance of production waste in research on leatherworking.

10. Documentation of leather artefacts: classification, drawing, and recording of archaeological leather.

Banck Burgess J., L.M. Rösch ed., Bound and Stitched Up ! Grass, Bast, Bark – Stone Age All-Rounders, Archäologische Informationen aus Baden-Württemberg Heft 82.

Cherry J. 1991, Leather [w:] English medieval industries. Craftsmen, techniques, products, eds. J. Blair, N. Ramsay, London, Rio Grande, OH, s. 295-318.

Goubitz O. 1984 The Drawing and Registration of Archaeological Footwear, Studies in Conservation, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 187-196

Goubitz O. 1987 Calceology: a new hobby: the drawing and recording of archaeological footwear, Overdrukken - Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek, nr 283.

Goubitz O., Driel-Murray C. van, Groenman-van Waateringe W. 2001, Stepping through Time. Archaeological Footwear from Prehistoric Times until 1800, Zwolle.

Grömer, K. 2016. The Art of Prehistoric Textile Making. The development of craft traditions and clothing in Central Europe (Veröffentlichungen der Prähistorischen Abteilung 5).Vienna.

Harjula J. 2015, Tracing the nameless actors. Leatherworking and production of leather artefacts in the town of Turku and Turku Castle, SW Finland [in:] Everyday products in the Middle Ages. Crafts, Consumption and the Individual in Northern Europe c. AD 800-1600, ed. G. Hansen, S.P. Ashby, I. Baug, Oxford, pp. 157-174.

Hurcombe, L.M. 2014, Perishable Material Culture in Prehistory. Investigating the Missing Majority, London & New York.

Conservation of leather and related materials, red. M. Kite M., R. Thomson, Londyn, 2006

Leather tanneries. The archaeological evidence, ed. R. Thomson, Q. Mould, London, s. 187-191.

Michel A. 2014, Skin deep: an outline of the structure of different skins and how it influences behavior in use. A practitioners’ guide, [w:] Why leather? The material and cultural dimensions of leather, red. S. Harris, A. J. Veldmeijer, Leiden, s. 23-40

Milewska M. 1980 A Method of Recording Late Medieval Footwear Finds, „Archeologia Polona”, R. XIX, s 115-136.

Thomson R. 1981 Leather manufacture in the post-medieval period with special reference to Northamptonshire, „Post-Medieval Archaeology”, v. 15, s. 161-175.

Ulanowska A. 2016, Towards methodological principles for experience textile archaeology. Experimental approach to the Aegean Bronze Age textile techniques in the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw. Prilozi Instituta za Arheologiju u Zagrebu 33: 317–339.

Ulanowska A. 2018, Innovative or traditional? Diachronic approaches to weaving technology in Bronze Age Greece. Światowit LVI: 57–73.

Ulanowska, A. 2020, A chaîne opératoire as a framework for investigating prehistoric textile production: Production of clay textile tools in Middle Bronze Age Crete as a ‘troublesome’ case study, Archaeological Review from Cambridge 35.1, 212–226.

Ulanowska A. 2020, Looms in spaces. The warp-weighted loom in the Aegean Bronze Age and the modern experience of weaving, Bulletin de l’Association pour la Promotion des Rescherches sur l’Âge du Bronze (APRAB) 18, 146–152.

Waterlogged organic artefacts. Guidelines on their recovery, analysis and conservation, English Heritage 2012.

The participants will learn the basic concepts and terminology describing perishable material culture, they will learn how to describe, document and analyse organic finds and tools used to produce them.

The participants will be able to analyse specific organic finds themselves, to choose the optimal method of analysis. They will work in groups and develop collaboration skills. They will understand the key role of textile production in ancient economies and learn how to use multidisciplinary approach to investigate material culture. They will be aware of the impact of technology in various social and cultural processes.

Participation in the course is obligatory (allowed is 1 absence). Each participant had to document a chosen piece of textile, a textile tool, and a leather item. The correctness of the documentation (e.g. its application to the presented documentation standards) is the basis for the evaluation