The Competition of Fibres: Early Textile Production in Western Asia, South-east and Central Europe (10,000-500BCE) (Ancient Textiles) 9781789254297, 9781789254303, 1789254299

Table of contents :
Cover
Book Title
Copyright
Table of Contents
Contributors
Series editor’s preface
Editors’ preface
1. Introduction: Wolfram Schier and Susan Pollock
2. The Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescentand the origins of fibre technology: Ofer Bar-Yosef
3. Early wool of Mesopotamia, c. 7000–3000 BC.Between prestige and economy: Catherine Breniquet
4. Continuity and discontinuity in Neolithic and Chalcolithic linentextile production in the southern Levant: Orit Shamir with an appendix by Antoinette Rast-Eicher
5. Fibres, fabrics and looms: a link between animal fibresand warp-weighted looms in the Iron Age Levant: Thaddeus Nelson
6. An archaic, male-exclusive loom from Oman: Janet Levy
7. The Topoi Research Group Textile Revolution:archaeological background and a multi-proxy approach: Wolfram Schier
8. Fibres to fibres, thread to thread. Comparing diachronic changes in large spindle-whorl samples: Ana Grabundžija and Chiara Schoch
9. Finding the woolly sheep: meta-analyses of archaeozoological data from south-western Asia and south-eastern Europe: Cornelia Becker, Norbert Benecke, Hans Christian Küchelmann and Stefan Suhrbier
10. Taming the fibres: traditions and innovations in the textile cultures of Neolithic Greece:Kalliope Sarri
11. Ex Oriente Ars? ‘Anatolianizing’ spindle whorls in the Early Bronze Age Aegean islands and their implications for fibre crafts: Sophia Vakirtzi
12. Different skills for different fibres? The use of flax and wool in textile technology of Bronze Age Greece in light of archaeological experiments: Agata Ulanowska
13. Neolithic flax production in the pre-Alpine region– knowledge increase since the 19th century: Sabine Karg
14. Underrated. Textile making in Neolithic lakeside settlements in the northern Alpine foreland: Johanna Banck-Burgess
15. Textile materials in the Mesolithic and Neolithic and their processing: Anne Reichert
16. Raw materials, textile technologies, innovations and cultural response in central Europe in the 3rd to 1st millennia BC: Karina Grömer
17. The first genetic evidence for the origin of central European sheep (Ovis ammon f. aries) populations from two different routes of Neolithisation and contributions to the history of woolly sheep: Elena A. Nikulina and Ulrich Schmölcke
18. Sheep husbandry in the Ancient Near East. Cuneiform evidence from the archaic texts from Uruk (c. 3500–2900 BC)1: Ingo Schrakamp

Citation preview

THE COMPETITION OF FIBRES

ANCIENT TEXTILES SERIES 36

THE COMPETITION OF FIBRES EARLY TEXTILE PRODUCTION IN WESTERN ASIA, SOUTH-EAST AND CENTRAL EUROPE (10,000–500 BC) International workshop Berlin, 8–10 March 2017

Edited by

WOLFRAM SCHIER AND SUSAN POLLOCK

Oxford & Philadelphia

Published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by OXBOW BOOKS The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Road, Oxford, OX4 1JE and in the United States by OXBOW BOOKS 1950 Lawrence Road, Havertown, PA 19083 © Oxbow Books and the individual authors 2020 Paperback Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-429-7 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78925-430-3 (epub) A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932451

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the publisher in writing. Printed in the United Kingdom by Short Run Press Typeset by Versatile PreMedia Services (P) Ltd For a complete list of Oxbow titles, please contact: UNITED KINGDOM Oxbow Books Telephone (01865) 241249 Email: [email protected] www.oxbowbooks.com UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Oxbow Books Telephone (610) 853-9131, Fax (610) 853-9146 Email: [email protected] www.casemateacademic.com/oxbow Oxbow Books is part of the Casemate Group

Front cover: B  ased on a poster by Birgit Nennstiel, Berlin. Photos: lime bast, copyright Anne Reichert (bottom); flax fibers, https:// commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1323711 (centre); sheep wool, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index. php?curid=6764684 (top).

Contents

Contributors Series editor’s preface Editors’ preface 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Introduction Wolfram Schier and Susan Pollock The Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent and the origins of fibre technology Ofer Bar-Yosef Early wool of Mesopotamia, c. 7000–3000 BC. Between prestige and economy Catherine Breniquet Continuity and discontinuity in Neolithic and Chalcolithic linen textile production in the southern Levant Orit Shamir and Antoinette Rast-Eicher Fibres, fabrics and looms: a link between animal fibres and warp-weighted looms in the Iron Age Levant Thaddeus Nelson An archaic, male-exclusive loom from Oman Janet Levy The Topoi Research Group Textile Revolution: archaeological background and a multi-proxy approach Wolfram Schier Fibres to fibres, thread to thread. Comparing diachronic changes in large spindle whorl samples Ana Grabundžija and Chiara Schoch Finding the woolly sheep: meta-analyses of archaeozoological data from south-western Asia and south-eastern Europe Cornelia Becker, Norbert Benecke, Hans-Christian Küchelmann and Stefan Suhrbier 10. Taming the fibres: traditions and innovations in the textile cultures of Neolithic Greece Kalliope Sarri 11. Ex Oriente Ars? ‘Anatolianizing’ spindle whorls in the Early Bronze Age Aegean islands and their implications for fibre crafts Sophia Vakirtzi 12. Different skills for different fibres? The use of flax and wool in textile technology of Bronze Age Greece in light of archaeological experiments Agata Ulanowska 13. Neolithic flax production in the pre-Alpine region: knowledge increase since the 19th century Sabine Karg 14. Underrated. Textile making in Neolithic lakeside settlements in the northern Alpine foreland Johanna Banck-Burgess

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15. Textile materials in the Mesolithic and Neolithic and their processing Anne Reichert 16. Raw materials, textile technologies, innovations and cultural response in central Europe in the 3rd–1st millennia BC Karina Grömer 17. The first genetic evidence for the origin of central European sheep (Ovis ammon f. aries) populations from two different routes of Neolithisation and contributions to the history of woolly sheep Elena A. Nikulina and Ulrich Schmölcke 18. Sheep husbandry in the Ancient Near East. Cuneiform evidence from the archaic texts from Uruk (c. 3500–2900 BC) Ingo Schrakamp

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Participants of the Berlin conference, March 2017 Front row (from left): Hans Christian Küchelmann, Cornelia Becker, Chiara Schoch, Sophia Vakirtzi, Anne Reichert (standing). Second row: Malgorzata Siennicka, Janet Levy, Orit Shamir, Margarita Gleba, Virginija Rimkutė, Linda Hurcombe, Ofer Bar-Yosef, guest. Third row: Wolfram Schier, Agata Ulanowska, Søren Dietz, Vanya Petrova, Kalliope Sarri, Sabine Karg, Ana Grabundžija, Catherine Breniquet, Johanna Banck-Burgess. Fourth row: Ulrich Schmölcke, Susanne Jahns, Norbert Benecke, Helmut Kroll, Thaddeus Nelson, guest

Contributors

Prof. Dr Ofer Bar-Yosef Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA; [email protected] Ofer Bar-Yosef (PhD, Hebrew University Jerusalem, 1970) is the MacCurdy Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University. He jointly conducted a series of Palaeolithic and Neolithic excavations in caves and open-air sites in Israel, Sinai (Egypt), Czech Republic, Republic of Georgia and China. He actively participated in three field projects in Turkey. His main interests are the archaeology of human evolution, global migrations, the origins of agriculture and the rise of pastoralism. Dr Johanna Banck-Burgess Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Textilarchäologie, Berlinerstraße 12, 73728 Esslingen, Germany; [email protected] Dr Johanna Banck-Burgess works as textile archaeologist at the State Service for Heritage Management of BadenWürttemberg. For more than 30 years she has been involved with textile research; mainly early iron age and neolithic textiles. She is also responsible for excavated organic finds. Basic research including new methods of documentation and new research approaches are important parts of her work. Her publications also comprise critical assessment of the methods in textile research and reflect on transfer of knowledge in the field of reconstruction. Dr Cornelia Becker Weidenstr. 60, 26389 Wilhelmshaven, Germany; [email protected] Cornelia Becker is a recently retired archaeozoologist, who studied zoology, botany and anthropology. Since 1974 she took part in the analysis of faunal remains from excavations in Germany, Greece and Switzerland. From 1983 to 2017 she worked as lecturer at the Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology of the Free University Berlin and was engaged in projects in Europe, south-west Asia and Africa. Her main focuses were

prehistoric economy and ecology, as well as bone-working artisanry in different time periods, from the Aceramic Neolithic to Modern Times. Prof. Dr Norbert Benecke Referat Naturwissenschaften, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Im Dol 2-6 (Haus I), 14195 Berlin, Germany; [email protected] Norbert Benecke is head of the Department of Natural Sciences at the German Archaeological Institute and a specialist in the field of archaeozoology. His main research interests include the exploitation of animals by prehistoric people in the various landscape zones of Eurasia (Neolithic– Iron Age), animal domestications in prehistoric times and the environmental history of Eurasia. Dr Catherine Breniquet Pr. Histoire de l’art et archéologie antiques, Université Clermont-Auvergne/EA 1001-CHEC, UFR LCSH, 29 boulevard Gergovia, F – 63037 Clermont-Ferrand cedex 1 EA 1001-CHEC, France; [email protected] Catherine Breniquet, PhD (Paris, 1990), HDR (Paris, 2006) is a Professor of History of Art and Archaeology of Antiquity at Clermont-Auvergne University. During the 1980s–1990s, she was a member of the French Archaeological Delegation in Iraq (DAFIq). She conducted fieldwork in Khirbet Derak, Tell el’ Oueili and Tell es-Sawwan in Iraq. The focuses of her research are the Late Neolithic period of Mesopotamia and textile archaeology. Dr Ana Grabundžija Institut für Prähistorische Archäologie (FU Berlin), Fabeckstr. 23-25, 14195 Berlin, Germany; agrabund@ gmail.com Ana Grabundžija studied archaeology, anthropology and geography at Zagreb University (MSc, 2010). She defended her PhD in Prehistoric Archaeology at Freie Universität Berlin (February 2017) on the topic ‘Archaeological Evidence for Early Wool Exploitation in South East and Central Europe’.

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Contributors

As postdoc she was employed in a follow-up project to incorporate more data from central European sites.

Natufian, 13,000 cal BC, to the Chalcolithic, 5000– 3900/3800 cal BC, and their socio-economic impact.

PD Dr Karina Grömer Prehistoric Department, Natural History Museum Vienna, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria; karina.groemer@ nhm-wien.ac.at Karina Grömer studied prehistoric archaeology at the University of Vienna in Austria (Habilitation 2019). She has specialised in textile analysis, research on textile tools and reconstruction of prehistoric costumes. Since 2008, she has been working at the Department of Prehistory of the Natural History Museum Vienna for different international research projects, e.g., DressID – Clothing and Identity, CinBA – Creativity in the Bronze Age, and the Chehrabad Saltmummy & Saltmine Exploration Project. Her current research focuses on the analysis of textiles from graves, settlements, and salt mines, covering a time span from 2500 BC to AD 1000.

Dr Thaddeus Jacob Nelson 128 ECC, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook NY, USA, 11794-2662; [email protected] Thaddeus Nelson, Dr Phil. (Stony Brook 2016) is an Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at Suffolk County Community College. His dissertation analysed Iron Age II Levantine loom weights in order to explore the changes in textile production that occurred as components of social and economic centralisation observed in this period. Ongoing work focuses on reconstructing the scale and organisation of weavers through archaeological materials.

Dr Sabine Karg MA Free University Berlin, Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Fabeckstraße 23-25, 14195 Berlin, Germany; Sabine.Karg@ fu-berlin.de Sabine Karg, Dr Phil. II (Basel, 1994), is a senior researcher and lecturer in archaeobotany at the Free University of Berlin. She is an expert in plant macroremains analysis from all time periods, focusing on Europe. Her current research is financed by the German Research Council and deals with the knowhow of flax cultivation and plant fibre production in Neolithic UNESCO wetland sites in the pre-Alpine region. Hans Christian Küchelmann Speicherhof 4, 28217 Bremen, Germany; info@ knochenarbeit.de; http://www.knochenarbeit.de Hans Christian Küchelmann studied biology at the University of Oldenburg until 1997. He began working as a freelance archaeozoologist in his lab, Knochenarbeit, in Bremen, mainly on German assemblages. International engagements include projects in Armenia, Morocco and Turkey. Since 2015 he has been a researcher at the German Maritime Museum Bremerhaven in a project concerned with the medieval to early modern stockfish trade. From 2016 to 2018 he was employed at the archaeozoology lab of the University of Groningen. Dr Janet Levy Department of Bible, Archaeology and the Ancient Near East, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, POB 653, Beer Sheva 84102, Israel; [email protected] Janet Levy received her PhD at the Department of Bible, Archaeology and the Ancient Near East of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2018. She specialises in fibre technology of the prehistoric Levant from the Epipalaeolithic

Dr Elena A. Nikulina Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Foundation Schleswig-Holstein State Museums, Schloss Gottorf, 24837 Schleswig, Germany; [email protected] Elena A. Nikulina, Dr rer. nat., is a Senior Researcher and leader of the archaeogenetic laboratory at the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA) in Schleswig, Germany. She is an expert in evolutionary biology and marine biodiversity. Recently, her primary research interests include the distribution of species in Holocene Europe, the history of domesticated animal populations and the effect of human cultural development on species’ ranges. Prof. Dr. Susan Pollock Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie, Fabeckstr. 23-25, 14195 Berlin; spollock@ zedat.fu-berlin.de Susan Pollock is professor of Western Asian Archaeology at the Freie Universität Berlin and formerly professor in the Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, Binghamton, NY. She has longstanding research interests in the village and early state societies of Western Asia and has conducted field projects in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey as well as Turkmenistan. Her research centres around commensality and food-related practices, processes of subjectivation, political economy, and feminist approaches to the past. Anne Reichert Experimentelle Archäologie/Archäotechnik, Storchenweg 1, D-76275 Ettlingen-Bruchhausen, Germany; anne.reichert@ freenet.de Anne Reichert is experimental archaeologist and archaeotechnician. For many years she has undertaken numerous experiments in reproducing Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age pottery, producing birch tar and processing vegetal matter such as vegetal fibre, bark and tree bast. She has reconstructed well-known archaeological find assemblages such as the Iceman’s (‘Ötzi’) equipment using authentic

Contributors materials and techniques. She also developed a travelling exhibition about textile materials in the Neolithic and teaches Stone Age techniques at museums and schools. Dr Kalliope Sarri Centre for Textile Research (CTR), Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen, Karen Blixensvej 4, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark; [email protected] Kalliope Sarri, MA (Athens), Dr Phil. (Heidelberg) was a Marie Skłodowska Curie fellow at the Centre for Textile Research, Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen. Her current project is entitled ‘Neolithic Textiles and Clothing Industries in the Aegean’. Her main research interests are south-east European prehistory, ethnology and textile studies. Prof. Dr Dr h.c. Wolfram Schier Free University Berlin, Fachbereich Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften, Institut für Prähistorische Archäologie, Fabeckstr. 23–25, Raum 0.1028, 14195 Berlin; wolfram. [email protected] Wolfram Schier is Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Free University Berlin. He studied at the universities of Munich, Saarbrücken and Oxford, and received his PhD in 1985. He held positions as Assistant Professor at Heidelberg University and as Professor at the universities of Bamberg and Würzburg. His research focuses on the Neolithic of south-eastern and central Europe, social structure and social change during the European Iron Age, and the diachronic and comparative archaeology of settlements and landscape. Currently, he is also researching the spread of prehistoric innovations (production of wool and copper), archaeo-astronomy, prehistoric transfer of knowledge and Neolithisation. Dr Ulrich Schmölcke Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology, Founda­ tion Schleswig-Holstein State Museums, Schloss Gottorf, 24837 Schleswig, Germany; [email protected] Ulrich Schmölcke, Dr rer. nat., is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (ZBSA) in Schleswig, Germany. As an archaeozoologist his main research interests are Holocene faunal history and the palaeoecology and development of European ecosystems. Chiara Schoch Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie (FU Berlin), Fabeckstr. 23-25, 14195 Berlin, Germany; schoch@zedat. fu-berlin.de In 2018 Chiara Schoch completed her PhD dissertation in archaeology on ‘Changes and Continuities in Textile Crafts from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in Western Asia’. She aims to find the people behind the spindle whorls and tries to do so via practical experience and statistical analysis.

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PD Dr Ingo Schrakamp Freie Universität Berlin, Fachbereich Geschichts- und Kulturwissenschaften, Institut für Altorientalistik, Fabeckstr. 23-25, Raum – 1.1059, 14195 Berlin, Germany; schrakam@ zedat.fu-berlin.de Ingo Schrakamp, Dr Phil. (2010 Marburg, Habilitation 2018 Berlin), is a Post-Doc at the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. He focuses on the early periods of Mesopotamia and has published on the history, chronology, geography, socio-economics and lexicography of Mesopotamia. Dr Orit Shamir Israel Antiquities Authority, PNB 586, Jerusalem, Israel, 90904; [email protected] Orit Shamir, Dr. Phil. (Jerusalem 2007) is Head of the Department of Museums and Exhibits and Curator of Organic Materials at the Israel Antiquities Authority. Her area of specialisations are ancient textiles, loom weights and spindle whorls from the Neolithic to the medieval period in Israel. Her publications appear at www.antiquities.academia. edu/OritShamir Dr Stefan Suhrbier Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology, Free University Berlin, Fabeckstrasse 23–25, 14195 Berlin; suhrbier@zedat. fu-berlin.de Stefan Suhrbier studied Prehistoric Archaeology at the Universities of Bamberg, Würzburg and Berlin until 2005. In 2017 he received his PhD from the Free University of Berlin. From 2006 to 2017 he held a lecturer position in Prehistoric Archaeology at the Free University of Berlin. His special field of study is the central European Neolithic. He has worked on the Middle Neolithic in northern Bavaria with a focus on chronology and settlement archaeology. His current research is on chronological network analysis. Dr Agata Ulanowska Centre for Research on Ancient Technologies, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Tylna 1, 90-364 Łódź, Poland; Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw, Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland; [email protected] Agata Ulanowska, PhD (Warsaw 2014), is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw. The focus of her research is on the Bronze Age Aegean, textiles and experimental archaeology. In 2015–2017 she was the head of the project Textile Production in Bronze Age Greece – Comparative Studies of the Aegean Weaving Techniques (FUGA 4 programme, Polish National Science Centre) and employed at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Łódź.

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Dr Sophia Vakirtzi Archaeological Resources Fund, Hellenic Ministry of Culture, 57 Panepistimiou str. Athens 105 64, Greece; [email protected] Sophia Vakirtzi received her Archaeology degree from the University of Athens. In 2002 she completed her Master’s in Environmental Archaeology (DEA co-hosted

by the Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle, Université Paris I, Paris VI, Paris X, Université de Besançon and the Institut National Agronomique Paris-Grignon). In 2015 she defended her doctoral dissertation at the University of Crete on the topic of Bronze Age Aegean yarn production. Her research focuses on the prehistoric textile economy and technology.

Series editor’s preface

It is a pleasure to introduce this volume on ancient fibres as part of the Ancient Textiles Series. After much research focus on ancient dress, clothing and textiles, it is timely to dedicate a volume to the raw materials, the fibre and its qualities and technical aspects. The editors, Wolfram Schier and Susan Pollock, are to be congratulated for bringing this volume out, as a grand finale of the work carried out in the ‘Textile Revolution’

research group. It was a visionary decision to include a textile research team in the ambitious Excellence Cluster TOPOI. The Textile Revolution team has brought out significant new results and formed a new generation of textile scholars and archaeologists with a broad range of skills. This volume testifies to this achievement. Marie-Louise Nosch Copenhagen, September 2019

Editors’ preface

The international Workshop ‘Competition of Fibres’ was held at the TOPOI building in Berlin-Dahlem 8–10 March 2017 with financial support of the German Research Foundation (DFG). It attracted some 20 international researchers in textile archaeology, who presented their most recent research on early textiles in south-west Asia and Europe and discussed it together with the members of the research group ‘Textile Revolution’, established in 2012 within the Berlin Cluster of Excellence TOPOI. The aim of the workshop was to stimulate discussions on the relationship between different fibre resources and their modes of exploitation. Special attention was given to the textile production process. The potential material advantages according to fibre type were reviewed within a broader context of environmental, cultural, economic and social interactions. Out of the 23 papers presented at the workshop, 16 have been collected as articles in this volume. A paper by Ingo Schrakamp, who was member of the research group but was not able to attend the workshop, was included for the publication. We received the written contributions in December 2017, while the review and editing procedure lasted until

October 2018. At the end of 2018 it became clear that Edition TOPOI would no longer be available for publishing the conference proceedings due to the termination of its funding. The editors had to search for alternative publishing options and are very grateful to Oxbow Books for accepting this edited volume for publication. Our special thanks goes to Marie-Louise Nosch (Copenhagen) for welcoming the volume in the series Ancient Textiles and, in general, for her marvellous support of our research group. We are thankful for the support in copy-editing the volume contributed by Anna Hahn, Gisela Eberhardt and Julia Ebert. Birgit Nennstiel agreed that her attractive poster for the conference could be used as inspiration for the book cover designed by Declan Ingram at Oxbow Books. Finally, we wish to thank our authors for their patient cooperation and hope that the volume will be welcomed as a representative collection of recent research on early textiles between south-west Asia and central Europe. Wolfram Schier and Susan Pollock Berlin, November 2019

1 Introduction Wolfram Schier and Susan Pollock

Early textile production was linked to raw material procurement strategies. Fibre treatment and processing depend greatly on both the nature and the quality of the resources used as well as on the desired end products. Fortunately, the different modes of exploitation and use leave recognisable traces in the archaeological record. Studies of textile production processes provide various strands of evidence for the investigation of technological changes. The initial inspiration for our work in the Topoi Research Group that gave rise to the conference behind this volume was to investigate the beginnings of wool use in western Asia and south-eastern Europe. Its major focus on one particular raw material, wool, restricted the potential to address specific factors that condition the dynamics of raw material usage within wider fibre repertoires and selection opportunities. However, as the collected papers here show so clearly, such a question cannot be adequately addressed without devoting attention to the usage of other sorts of fibres and the history of textiles more generally. Acknowledging this raises the question of defining the notion ‘textile’ more generally. Usually we think of woven cloth, taking the technique of weaving as being both the most widespread and (supposedly) oldest one. Textiles, however, include not only flat fabrics, but also string, yarns, ropes and nets. Importantly, these ‘linear textiles’ are attested archaeologically long before cloth, and even in hunter-gatherer societies prior to the Neolithic. Making these textiles involved techniques such as looping, knotting, twining and splicing, all of which can claim a much older history than weaving. Due to the scarcity of direct evidence in the form of preserved textiles, weaving is generally assumed to have been practised based on the occurrence of loom weights, which turn up much later (Late Neolithic in SW Asia, Middle

Neolithic in SE Europe). Recent research, however, shows that after frequent use in the Middle and Late Neolithic cultures of the Balkans, loom weights disappear for almost one millennium from the archaeological record of SE Europe,1 suggesting that simpler versions of a portable loom were used by more mobile, pastoral communities that do not leave any archaeological traces.2 Shamir notes that the introduction of looms would allow a more mechanised form of production. Their appearance in the southern Levant in the Chalcolithic went hand-in-hand with a marked increase in the use of spindle whorls, and hence presumably with an intensification of thread and yarn production. For Neolithic Greece, Sarri proposes that the adoption of the warp-weighted loom was associated with the introduction of wool. Just as the techniques used to produce textiles and the form that they took are far more varied than attention to cloth alone would suggest, the contributions to this volume also point to the wide variety of fibres used. Flax and wool are well known, as are their distinct properties and requirements as well as the steps involved in turning the raw material into usable fibres. Less attention has been paid to the use of other vegetal fibres, such as hemp and nettle, which are widely witnessed in the archaeobotanical record by their seeds and/ or pollen, but rarely identified as preserved fibre or imprint. Probably the most underestimated plant fibre is bast, which can be acquired from a wide range of tree species, each with their own properties and requirements for processing. As several contributions to this volume show (BanckBurgess, Karg, Reichert), tree bast is a very versatile raw material that can be processed into a variety of one- and two-dimensional textiles. It is the predominant type of fibre in the earliest waterlogged sites in central Europe from the late 5th millennium onwards. The lack of direct evidence

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Wolfram Schier and Susan Pollock

for bast fibres in south-eastern Europe and western Asia may be in part a matter of preservation – there are no excavated contexts comparable to those of the lake dwellings – but it may also be related, at least in western Asia, to the limited supply of suitable trees. Among the animal fibres, of course, wool is the primary one, but the use of goat hair is also attested and, as discussed in the contribution by Levy, camel hair must be taken into account for the arid regions of south-western and central Asia. Despite the tremendous pace of progress in palaeogenetic research in recent years, until now the loci where fur/fleece growth is genetically coded in the sheep genome have not unambiguously been identified. Despite new insights into the relevant mutation process in recent genetics,3 it still remains one of the great challenges for palaeogenetics to directly identify the woolly sheep based on aDNA extracted from archaeozoological material. For the time being, the question where, when and how often this genetic mutation occurred (independently?) must remain open. So far, (indirect) genetic evidence from central Europe offers no indication that woolly sheep were introduced from western Asia, but rather probably developed and were selected independently (Nikulina and Schmölke). In most archaeological contexts, textiles are poorly preserved, if at all, and hence many archaeological studies of fibres and textiles rely on indirect indicators, especially tools. This was also the reason why the Textile Revolution Group applied a multiproxy approach (Schier), combining several strands of indirect evidence in order to track moments of change and innovation in the early production of textiles. Tools used for textile production are spindle whorls, which are especially common in the archaeological record, and, where applicable, loom weights, but also needles, shuttles and tools for processing raw fibres, such as flax combs. What has been less systematically studied are impressions and pseudomorphs of textiles, which may not permit fibre identification but do offer information on techniques of plying, weaving, etc. In general, ethnographic and experimental studies have shown that certain tools and fibres are better suited for particular uses, and there are tendencies for specific kinds of fibres or tools to be used for specific products. Apparently, however, there are few absolutes – an expert spinner, weaver and textile producer is able to adapt tools and fibres for desired uses. Recent analogies suggest a considerable overlap in the relations between tool morphology and functional specialisation. Two PhD projects within the Textile Revolution Group focused explicitly on spindle-whorl morphology (Schoch and Grabundžija) and were able to demonstrate remarkable and hitherto unrecognised differences in the weights and formal properties of spindle whorls between SW Asia and SE Europe. Despite the ambiguity of morphological variability,

their results point to an earlier onset in the processing of short staple fibres (wool?) in SW Asia, and, one millennium later, a much wider variation of weights and proportions of SE European spindle whorls, suggesting simultaneous processing of both early wool and long vegetal fibres (flax?) in the 4th millennium. In her PhD dissertation, Schoch has argued that wool fibres were first used long before a wool industry based on long-staple fibres developed, and hence well before an intensification of sheep husbandry is visible in the zooarchaeological record on the basis of age profiles as well as changing sizes and breeds of sheep. The increasing frequency of spindle whorls in the later 7th millennium might be an effect of weaving, which would raise the demand for spun yarn significantly, as she suggests. The high degree of standardisation in whorl parameters in SW Asia, however, makes it rather difficult to track the suspected growth in importance of wool with greater time resolution based on this kind of indirect evidence (Schoch and Grabundžija). Becker, Benecke, Küchelmann and Suhrbier present the first results of the analysis of a very large body of published osteological data, which was collected by the Textile Revolution team. Sex and age distributions of sheep bones display considerable variability in husbandry strategies, both in SW Asia and SE Europe, but no clear linear trend towards specialised wool production. In both areas, however, a statistically significant rise in the average size of sheep can be observed – in SW Asia it occurs between 4500 and 4000 cal BC, in SE Europe about one millennium later (3500–2500 cal BC). This could be indicative of a new breed or phenotype of sheep, possibly bearing a woolly fleece, as the authors suggest. The chronology of fibre use is one of the most challenging tasks in the archaeology of early textiles. The scarcity of preserved textiles makes it difficult, if not impossible, to search for ‘the oldest’ evidence for a specific kind of fibre or processing technique. Besides, it is not solely a matter of when a specific fibre such as wool was first used, but rather a question of how and with what intensity. Intensity can refer to either the production of the raw material – e.g. husbandry of sheep – or of textiles, and may in turn become part of the production and control of wealth and labour (Nelson); it is often connected with specialisation (Schrakamp). Several contributions also discuss the social dimensions of early textile production. Although archaeological evidence may not always be amenable to specifying gender, the possibilities of gendered associations in textile production and/or in portions of the production process should not be ignored. They may be of particular salience when new fibres, tools, and techniques are introduced as well as when these activities were intensified. It has long been known from well-studied text corpora from 3rd millennium BC Mesopotamia that women played

1. Introduction a major role in textile production in large workshops (Breniquet, Schrakamp). Such evidence should not simply be generalised. Thus, in an ethnographic example from Oman, Levy shows that the fibres and tools used as well as the form of the textiles produced may vary by gender. Social dimensions of textiles pertain not only to their production, but also to their use and perception within the social group. In addition to the possibility that the early uses of clothing were connected to prestige rather than being solely utilitarian (Breniquet), it is clear that cloth and clothing, including the fibres of which they were made, but also their weaves, elaboration, etc., were significant contributors to social expression (Grömer). It is widely assumed that wool, owing to its greater ability to take up dyes, provides far more possibilities for colourful patterns and, thus, distinction along social gradients and group identities. While this holds true for cloth and costumes composed of different fabrics, it is unlikely to have been the case for most linear textiles, such as rope, string, nets, etc., which were mostly intended for utilitarian usages. There is also a temporal dimension in the social meaning of textiles, since fibre usage turns plant and animal products into material that can be kept for many years, whether in the form of processed fibres or textiles (Reichert). In a way, textiles could be regarded a ‘secondary product’ in a different sense – one that prolongs the potential usage of plants and animals beyond their lifetime. The potential to stockpile fibres and/or textiles can contribute to wealth accumulation as well as allowing a degree of flexibility in the scheduling of tasks. The somewhat provocative title for the workshop, Competition of Fibres, was chosen under the influence of results from the research of A. Grabundžija and S. Karg, which suggested an intensification of both flax cultivation and wool production during the later 4th millennium in central Europe. The high variability of spindle-whorl weights and proportions during this period points to a wide range of different fibres and fabrics being produced in contemporaneous, increasingly specialised communities. Karg argues for a differentiation of flax cultivated for oil vs. linen during the second half of the 4th millennium, supported by the

3

occurrence of distinct metric clusters of flax seeds retrieved from lake dwellings in SW Germany and Switzerland. In general, however, the various case studies presented here point to complementarity rather than competition, with different fibres better suited for different products, sometimes used by different groups and involving different knowledge, organisation and skills (Ulanowska). In some specific cases, the adoption of a new fibre such as wool may have led to substitutions for previous fibre usages (Grömer, Breniquet). This seems often to represent a social distinction – e.g. in Mesopotamia linen became associated with the gods and kings.4 Over time some fibres even ceased to be used: the knowledge of how to deal with most tree basts seems to have disappeared already in the Bronze Age and has been lost today (Banck-Burgess), suggesting that over the long term a certain competition and exclusion can also be recognised. Compared to other prehistoric innovations and technical evolutions, such as the production of pottery or early metallurgy, the early history of textile production contains many open questions, lacks temporal resolution and offers a great potential for future research.

Notes 1 Grabundžija 2018, 269–273. 2 Petrova 2016. 3 Demars et al. 2017. 4 McCorriston 1997.

References Demars, J. et al. (2017) Genome-wide identification of the mutation underlying fleece variation and discriminating ancestral hairy species from modern woolly sheep. Molecular Biology and Evolution 34(7), 1722–1729 doi:10.1093/molbev/msx114. Grabundžija, A. (2018) Eneolithic textile production. In J. Balen, I. Miloglav, D. Rajković (eds) Back to the Past: Copper Age in Northern Croatia, 257–285. Zagreb, Tiskara Zelina. McCorriston, J. (1997) The fiber revolution: textile extensification, alienation, and social stratification in Ancient Mesopotamia. Current Anthropology 38(4), 517–535. Petrova, V. (2016) History of the warp-weighted loom from the Neolithic till the end of Antiquity. Studia Archaeologica Universitatis Serdicensis 5, 115–218.

2 The Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent and the origins of fibre technology Ofer Bar-Yosef

The origins of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent took place in a core area located in the northern Levant focused in the Euphrates valley and its surroundings. Major technological, economic and social changes of the Neolithic Revolution ended a long period of cultivation of wild plants adopted by mobile, semi-sedentary and sedentary foragers. The ‘Domestication Syndrome’ resulted in architectural changes from round to rectangular house plans as well as technological inventions of lithics, new body decorations, obsidian trade and long-­distance exchange, accompanied by making cloth from domesti­ cated flax, thus preceding domestication of edible plants. Terrestrial roads, rivers and sea transport fuelled the spread of fast-growing farming populations from the Fertile Crescent core. Keywords: Neolithic Revolution, Fertile Crescent, core area, river transport, flax domestication

Introduction This review paper focuses on the origins of the Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent and the first socio-economic steps taken by farmers who domesticated a suite of plants and animals in south-western Asia. This process is also known as ‘the transition from foraging to farming’ and avoids the use of the term ‘revolution’ although within the scale of the last 2.6 million years of human evolution, it was a revolution. Its variable impacts led current writings to replace the geological term Holocene with a new one labelled ‘Anthropocene’. However, the Holocene as a geological term records various sequences of socio-cultural changes, demonstrating gradual world-wide replacement of hunting and gathering by agro-pastoral societies. The main body of this paper summarises the critical phases within the Neolithic Revolution in south-western Asia. Given the rich literature on this subject, I selected first only a few items for this review and therefore limited extensively the number of cited references. Undoubtedly, dispersals of products incorporated in the ‘agricultural package’ that document the domestication of cereals and legumes as well as the four animals goat, sheep, cattle and pig deserve a longer report.

Second, I focus on the means that facilitated the transmission of products and knowledge along terrestrial roads as well as sea and river transports. The latter communication avenues, except for the colonisation of Cyprus, have received some attention. Constructing small boats from reeds as those historically known from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, required strings, not only strips of leather. This issue raises the question of when humans began to use different bast fibres, such as flax or hemp for making strings, and in particular when and where the domestication of wild flax took place. The archaeological evidence, discussed below, suggests that domesticated flax fibres were employed in the Levant for making simple cloth by looping and knotted netting before the loom was invented. Understanding the role of flax fibres, rarely preserved in archaeological contexts, is critical for tracing technological changes prior to the domestication of edible plants and animals in the Fertile Crescent. The tipping point of this socio-economic revolution, as all authorities agree, was when foragers began to cultivate a suite of the plants already exploited for many millennia. This major shift in procurement strategies caused dramatic

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changes to lifeways of hunter-gatherers who mostly gave up mobility, either gradually or as a relatively abrupt decision, and became sedentary cultivators. In an evolutionary scale abrupt decisions require an explanation. We therefore should consider the story with a brief summary that sketches schematically the nature of both societies. Foragers, the longest surviving society, have a flexible social structure, use a degree of personal and group cooperation in getting food, are subject to seasonal movements (including strategies of anticipated mobility), are affected by seasonal fluctuations in food supplies, are involved in physical conflicts and have a complex belief system.1 Farmers need a tighter social organisation evolving into hierarchies as population increases, and need to maintain social agreements, a stable economy equipped with buffering techniques against famine, geographic proximity of partners for mating, and have a similar complexity of belief systems as their predecessors.2 Archaeology, supported by recent palaeogenetic studies, documents when particular groups of hunter-gatherers became farmers by initiating systematic cultivation of plants instead of ephemeral gathering.3 The inception of systematic cultivation in Eurasia and Africa began during the Late Pleistocene, a time when, except for the Pacific islands, the entire globe became inhabited by modern humans.

Sedentary cultivators or pioneering farmers The Late and Terminal Pleistocene periods in the Fertile Crescent exhibit geographically, in my view, the presence of generally well-delineated cultural entities. These were the tribes or populations of hunter-gatherers identified according to their weaponry made by hafting different microlithic tools, not the so-called microblades.4 Unfortunately, only the lithic assemblages from numerous sites were preserved with a few outlines of temporary huts, fireplaces, grinding stones and rare burials. They are assigned to the Nebekian Complex east of the Jordan valley and the Kebaran Complex mostly dominating the west side (c. 21,000–16,000 BC). The Kebaran and Nebekian sites are rarely found in the semi-arid zone except for the mountains of southern Jordan and the oases of Kharaneh IV, Azraq and Jilat, all within a radius of 20 km.5 The low sea level during this period widened the coastal plain by about 10–15 km. The locations of the known Late Glacial Maximum sites correspond to the habitable conditions within the Mediterranean vegetation zone and the marginal Irano-Turanian steppe. The best recorded site is Ohalo II, a camp of hunter-gatherers on the shores of Lake Kinnert dated to 20,300–19,800 BC,6 at a time of a relatively drier period. The rich archaeobotanical assemblage retrieved at this site contains many species, including fruits and seeds. The analysis of the local cereals (wild barley and wheat) indicates that the plants were intentionally grown,7 an observation supported by starch

analysis.8 The latter were traced through the microscopic cracks of the grinding stones. The climatic improvement around 16,500 BC caused a temperature rise and an increase of winter precipitation. This is the time when the Geometric Kebaran Complex from as far north as the el-Kowm basin began to spread in the belt of Mediterranean vegetation (c. 16,500–13,500 BC) reaching the semi-arid areas of southern Sinai. Sites of successful foragers expanded their foraging territories over a distance of some 1000  km and are recognised by their distinctive geometric shaped (trapeze-rectangles) microliths made from blanks of blade/bladelets. Ecologically similar assemblages accommodated numerous assemblages in the entire Levant, demonstrating the uniformity of their tool-making traditions. In spite of the geographic spread, it seems that mobile bands closely maintained their social relationships. When foraging conditions in Sinai and the Negev improved around 14,500 through 13,000 BC, groups from north-east Africa, identified by particular microlithic types, expanded into the southern Levant. This immigration is currently supported by palaeogenetic evidence from the site of Rakefet cave.9 Fieldwork in northern Sinai and the Negev revealed the presence of hunter-gatherers, who occupied temporary camps, and were originally named as Early and Late Mushabian, but subsequently renamed as Mushabian and Ramonian.10 In a stratified locality in northern Sinai, dated Mushabian and Geometric Kebaran assemblages covered an earlier site with the later, thus confirming the conclusion that the new occupants replaced the former.11 The tool-making of the Mushabian complex features North African systematics through the use of the microburin technique that results in making piquant trièdres shaped into La Mouillah points.12 The Mushabian descendants, makers of the Ramonian, reached into the Judaean foothills north of Beer Sheva valley. Helwan lunates characterised by bifacially shaped lunate-type microliths were made by the Ramonians and were adopted by other foragers, perhaps by a mixed population identified as Early Natufian. Taking into account the overall distribution of Levantine sites around c.13,000 cal BC, whether viewed as several entities or tribes or identified as simple foraging groups, there were already more people per square kilometre present at that time, occupying every ecological niche. The archaeological observations are interpreted as the results of increasing ‘relative demographic pressure’, an interpretation fully supported by archaeozoological investigations.13 The emergence of the Early Natufian culture, previously defined as a ‘point of no return’,14 represents a major organisational change from a more or less fully mobile way of life to the formation of sedentary and semi-sedentary ways of life. Clusters of simple dwellings of reeds with straw superstructures over rounded, semi-subterranean structures with stone foundations, characterised the new building types. In addition, the hafted microlithic artefacts demonstrate a

2.  The Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent dominance of lunate forms often shaped on small flakes, thus indicating that their makers held a different tradition of stone-knapping techniques than the older, local Geometric Kebaran artisans. Making and using mortars and pestles by the Natufians were extensive, and so were graveyards with numerous burials, including rare dogs and rich assemblages of body decorations.15 Explaining the emergence of the Natufian culture allows for two scenarios. First, in view of the improved climatic conditions (Bølling–Allerød?), mobile foragers were encouraged to stay put and establish hamlets. The second scenario posits that mounting demographic pressures caused by the cold Heinrich 1 Event and the presence of foreign foragers, who moved into the region from the south, semi-sedentary or fully sedentary communities were the organisational solution for the needs to establish territorial control. Hamlets or villages with on-site cemeteries signalled land ownership. During the three and half millennia of the existence of the Natufian culture and its various phases, several sites exemplify the dynamic history of these communities. Sites were abandoned and resettled, as shown by complex stratigraphies such as in Eynan, el-Wad terrace, Hayonim cave and terrace, Wadi Hammeh 27 and Nahal Ein-Gev II.16 The economy of this society was based on growing wild cereals and perhaps legumes, extensive plant gathering and a broad spectrum of hunting, often dominated by gazelles. Unfortunately, the evidence for Natufians gathering and acts of rare pioneer farmers are not derived from the isolated records of plant remains. In reality, in all the Natufian sites excavated since the 1960s in which flotation was conducted, among the only rare well-preserved reasonable collections of charred remains is Dederiyeh cave in northern Syria.17 Studies of sickle blades suggest that the Natufians harvested their cereals when they were half-green and half-ripe.18

Neolithic villages and the origins of agriculture Accepting that cultivation began among Natufian sites (c. 13.5000–10,900/800 cal BC; Fig. 2.1), it continued through the major transition to the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), the onset of the Neolithic Revolution (10,000/9,700 cal BC). The first change is expressed in the size of the new sites where the construction of round houses, often above stone foundations, made use of brick walls or ones of stones with flat roofs.19 Other unique markers are storage facilities and the appearance of new tool types such as axes for felling trees and carpentry, various types of arrowheads, and among the common shapes of grinding equipment a shift from mortars to querns. These cultural markers reflect a relatively fast population growth and overall higher social energy expenditure than any of the preceding cultures.20 Due to the impressive amount of fieldwork and publications of sites dated to the first millennium and a half of the Holocene

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(c. 10,000/9700–8500 cal BC), two contemporary economic regimes were identified in the northern Fertile Crescent. The issue of why foragers began to cultivate was not well explored in the available literature or the numerous discussions involving the emergence of agriculture and the domestication syndrome. The current evidence indicates that annual cultivation emerged among mobile and semi-sedentary hamlets or temporary camps of hunter-gatherers who may have practised anticipated mobility within a given territory. The oldest example is that of Ohalo II (21,000 BC) where wild cereals were cultivated and consumed.21 This phenomenon was not unique to the Levant. Evidence of cultivation of chenopods and tubers prior to the adoption of the winning crops (wheat, barley, millet, rice and corn) was recorded in all continents except for Australia.22 The first manifestations of systematic cultivation of several wild species began in the Levant in several localities during the Terminal Pleistocene (c. 16,000–10,000 BC). The role of climatic fluctuations in the presence of different tribes of foragers exploiting variable ecological zones contributed in due course to the formation of a ‘relative demographic population pressure’. Such a temporary situation that lasted for a few centuries may have occurred more than once. However, the tipping point was when domestication based on intensive human selection of wild einkorn, wheat and barley began in the northern Levant around 8800/8500 cal BC. Broad beans and chickpeas joined slightly later (8300/8400 cal BC) as the first round of the accomplished domestication syndrome.23 As suggested by Davies, the achievement of the domestication syndrome took about two to three centuries.24 The domesticated products made their way to the southern Levantine region as recorded by the available radiocarbon dates.25 This conclusion is generally supported by the dates on bones of domesticated goat, sheep, cattle and pig that occurred first in the northern Levant.26 The transfer of domesticated animals over a distance of 500–600 km from the core area to the southern Levant took some 500 years or more, longer than the plants.27 In addition, a recent overview warns that the interpretations of the bone assemblages of the four domesticated animals are still littered with ambiguities concerning how to identify animal management and herding versus certain aspects of hunting.28 It should be noted that the limited amount of archaeobotanical evidence concerning early cultivation in the southern Levant is due to the often poor conditions of preservation much more than the recovery techniques. However, in recorded cases of fast accumulations of ash, whether in destroyed or deteriorated houses such as in Jericho, Gilgal and Netiv Hagdud, good size samples of remains were obtained.29 Sites in alluvial or slope deposits produced very few seeds, often of mixed ages. Dry caves in the Judaean desert had a better fate, as in Nahal Hemar cave.30

Ofer Bar-Yosef

8

C

14

B.P.

Calibrated

Periods and entities in the Levant

B.P. B.C. 4,000

2,000

4,000

Early Bronze

5,000 3,000 5,000

6,000 4,000

6,000 7,000 “8,200

cold event”

8,000

9,000

7,000

5,000

8,000

6,000

9,000

10,000 8,000

11,000 10,000

7,000

9,000

11,800 / 700

12,000 10,000

11,000

12,800 13,000 11,000

12,000

14,000 12,000

13.000

15,000 13,000 16,000 14,000

Chalcolithic

Pottery Neolithic climatic crisis

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B

Final Late

Early

North

Khiamian

= PPNC

Middle

(PPNB)

Mureybetian

Yarmukian

PPNA

Final Natufian

South

Sultanian Khiamian

climatic amelioration

Late Natufian

Younger Dryas

Early Natufian Epi-Paleolithic entities

(Kebaram, Geomentric Kebaran, Mushabian, Ramonian, etc.)

Figure 2.1:Chronological table for the Levant (© Ofer Bar-Yosef)

O. B-Y

2.  The Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent Under the current circumstances one cannot escape the debate concerning the origins and evolution of plant domestication. Briefly, one view suggests that the process of achieving the domestication syndrome was a long, ‘protracted process’.31 The other view is an intentional selection practised by farmers during two or three centuries resulting in the domestication syndrome.32

Geographic cultural entities during the Early Neolithic Since the onset of the Neolithic period we note the presence of three contemporary entities in the northern Levant. One persisted along the Tigris river valley and the two others within the Euphrates drainage basin. All apparently lasted during the PPNA period. Sites along the Tigris valley accommodated sedentary settlements of complex hunting and gathering communities such as Hallan Çemi, Körtik Tepe and others. These villages survived by hunting and gathering and interacted with farming societies in the Euphrates valley and its tributaries. The two others incorporated the Göbekli Tepe culture and the Mureybetian entity. Both were economically based on cultivation of wild cereals and continued hunting, trapping and gathering wild plants. The most impressive is the Göbekli Tepe culture, named after the central ceremonial centre with its T-shaped pillars supporting the roofs of round shrines, which later changed their plans to rectangular and smaller size structures.33 Elaborate relief figures of wildlife sculptures and schematic humans decorate the pillars and small sculptures embedded in the walls of the early building. Similar but isolated ceremonial buildings occur in other sites such as Nevalı Çori and yet unexcavated localities along the Balikh and Khabur tributaries.34 Given the amount of energy expenditure spent in quarrying and shaping the Göbekli Tepe limestone pillars, the needed social organisation as well as the type of long houses exposed in Nevali Çori, not common in other Neolithic sites, it seems that the social organisation was a simple chiefdom.35 The second entity is centred on the Euphrates and its western tributaries. Houses are round and built of shaped stones with a tendency to become square as time goes by. Underground buildings (‘kiva’) for storage and semi-ceremonial buildings for a small group of people were exposed in Mureybet and Jerf el Ahamar.36 Given long-distance connections (discussed below), this architectural feature was also uncovered in Faynan 16 in southern Jordan.37 One may expect others to be uncovered west of the Jordan valley in the future. The lithic industries show common characteristics named Khiamian (with el-Khiam points) and Mureybetian with a well-developed blade industry.38 The southern Levantine communities quite possibly lasted for a shorter time than the Sultanian. The latter was a major, well-represented

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culture, as evidenced in Jericho and neighbouring sites such as Netiv Hagdud and Gilgal.39 The following period is known as Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB). It began somewhat earlier in the northern Levant (by two or three centuries) before the presumed short climatic crisis of c. 8000 cal BC.40 The richness of the PPNB (c. 8500–6200 cal BC) lasted during over two millennia and is characterised by larger sites of 12 hectares and more, with rectangular buildings as well as clusters of rooms and courtyards of extended families such as in Bouqras.41 The richness of the northern PPNB is well expressed in body decorations demonstrating sophisticated drilling technique. Obsidian assemblages proliferated that reflect the amount of trade and exchange with the sources in Anatolia. The special blade-knapping technique known for its naviform cores42 spread first into the south and later into Anatolia.43 During the time of the PPNB and later, both populations went through a process of increased mixing as shown palaeogenetically.44 Plans of rectangular and square buildings were adopted by the southern people, but contemporary hunter-gatherers continued to have rounded huts in the Syro-Arabian desert and Sinai. Differences between the northern and the southern Levant are noted, for example, in the production of axes that were made by polishing in the north and by bifacial flaking in the south. Additional variability among the lithic industries is indicated by the presence of Jericho points in the south. However, the amount of imported Anatolian obsidian was higher in the north due to the richness of its communities when compared to those in the south.45 However, as the number of excavations of PPNB sites is larger in the south, in spite of their small number, they disclosed a suite of unique local cultural markers such as the modelled skulls and stone masks that were found in several sites.46 In the southern end of the Levant, the Negev, Sinai and southern Jordan sites, mobile foragers dominated the landscape, surviving for several millennia. All were incorporated in the interaction sphere of the western wing of the Fertile Crescent, including sites in the Jordan and Syro-Arabian desert. Eventually the Tigris valley saw the establishment of farming communities during the PPNB period as the expansion of the agricultural package made its way east through Mesopotamia, the Zagros mountains and later into the Caucasus region. The socio-economic changes in the northern Levant impacted also the Anatolian plateau, the colonisation of Cyprus and later the islands of the Aegean, Greece and the Balkans.

The origins of the fibre revolution Strings or ropes were needed in daily life during the Palaeolithic. The proposal that our ancestors employed only strips cut from animal hides, tendons or ligaments is probably incorrect. Strings made of plant materials (wild flax, hemp,

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nettle and others) were employed, but archaeologically occur rarely. The presence of wild flax fibres was recently recorded through the analysis of non-pollen palynomorphs (NPP). Microscopic fossil wild flax fibres were discovered in Late Palaeolithic sites in the Caucasus and China.47 Most of the domestication of edible plants occurred sometime between 8500–8300 cal BC, but in Wadi Muraba’at, in the Judaean desert, a wooden comb dated to 9500 cal BC was wrapped with a twined textile made of flax identified as domesticated.48 Later examples are the rich collections from Nahal Hemar cave, originally dated to 7900–7600 cal BC.49 Similarly, several flax textiles were uncovered in a few burials in Halula, a PPNB village on the bank of a tributary of the Euphrates river.50 Flax domestication is not a simple issue. Wild flax, known as pale flax (Linum bienne Mill. synonym of L. angustifolium Huds.), has the same chromosome number (2n = 2x = 30) as the domesticated species, is self-pollinated, readily intercrosses and is fully interfertile. Archaeobotanists and geneticists have studied wild and domesticated flax.51 Most research focused on their seeds, which serve as a source of omega-3 fatty acid (α-linolenic acid), and later for their lignans, chemical components used for medical treatments. Wild flax seeds, although susceptible to decay, were preserved in a few sites in Syria, Turkey and Iran dated from 9500 to 6750 cal BC.52 Carbonised seeds are more likely to be preserved than strings and textiles. The main question is, was flax domesticated for its fibres (assuming that rare occurrences of the domestic variety were noticed as taller than the wild type) or for its oil? The genetic diversity of the sad2 locus of the domestic plants differs from the pale flax and suggests to researchers that the plant was first cultivated for its oil rather than fibre.53 Archaeobotanists are able to distinguish between the seeds of domestic and wild flax on the basis of size, as originally indicated by van Zeist and associates.54 We note that only the large collection of flax seeds retrieved in Tell Ramad I (c. 7000 cal BC, the lower layer) were considered as domesticated.55 Hence, the most parsimonious explanation would be that flax domestication resulted first by the plants growing taller, and later, around 7000 cal BC, the seeds became also a source of oil. If the PPNA date of c. 9500 cal BC of the Muraba’at object records the presence of domesticated flax,56 then possibly flax domestication preceded the domestication of edible plants and animals. I therefore assume that the process of flax cultivation was begun by the Natufian culture in the Levant or even earlier. The PPNB radiocarbon readings from Nahal Hemar and Tell Halula (7900–7300 BC) indicate that domesticated flax was already available for making strings and threads by the PPNB (8500–6200 cal BC). In sum, I propose to view flax domestication as a Palaeolithic invention within the same cultural context of inventions made by modern humans.

Transportation of products, seeds and animals The dating of seeds, animal bones and artefacts produced in one area and found in another are indications for transport on land, rivers and sea. Ignoring the relatively short terrestrial distances between sites that were within one week to one month’s walk or travel by river is a warning cry for those who prefer to conclude that there were a series of independent loci of domestication of plants and animals in the Fertile Crescent.57 One tends to forget how easy travel was in south-western Asia prior to the 19th century. Considering the role of seafaring and river transport by vessels as communication devices in addition to walking that facilitated population growth during the Early Neolithic provides a better understanding how two interaction spheres emerged since the Terminal Pleistocene. The emergence of a western interaction sphere during the Early Neolithic including eastern Anatolia was a natural process for communities in great proximity to each other and having long-standing local Epipaleolithic traditions. This process incorporated Cyprus.58 The overland walking routes in the Levant, such as Via Maris along the coastal plain and the Kings Road along the Transjordanian plateau as well as the upper reaches of the Euphrates river, were probably the routes used for importing various products including Anatolian obsidian to the southern Levant. The eastern interaction sphere evolved in the Mesopotamian plains, including the Zagros ranges (western Iran). Boating on rivers (e.g. the Tigris and Euphrates) with simple vessels constructed of reeds and covered by hides, seeds, animals, technologies and information, could be brought within a short time (a month or two) from the ‘core area’ in the northern Levant into Mesopotamia. The evidence for the transfer is that local communities kept their own tool-making tradition of producing microliths. The Tigris river (1850 km long) and its tributaries were used as highways to reach the Zagros foothills and the margins of southern Mesopotamia. Similarly, the Euphrates river (2800 km long) served for inter-regional transmission of information and for the establishment of villages, perhaps of kin-related Neolithic groups, along an 80 km waterway.59 While it is obvious that the rivers could be used as highways, the question is, what kind of vessels were employed during the Neolithic? Historical records and ethnography are the best sources until an ancient example is recovered. Archaeologically, the kind of boats that were used for the transport on the two rivers include, according to ethnographic and historical records,60 the following types: 1. Quffah – a rounded small boat 1.2–3.0 m in diameter and up to 1  metre deep. It is constructed as a strong wicker basket with bundles of reeds and strings, covered outside by bitumen, and paddled by one or two persons.61 Clay models from Eridu show the same

2.  The Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent small boats with a central mast, possibly indicating a technology that had deeper prehistoric roots.62 I suggest that this type of vessel is at least 10,000 years old. 2. Mashūf is a small reed bundle-built canoe 5–6 metres long, known to have been used in the marshy areas of the Euphrates and the Tigris, and navigated by one person using a paddle. 3. Kalak is an elongated wooden platform, about 3 × 6  metres in size. Its buoyancy is secured by 30–50 inflated skins of goats and sheep attached to the lower part of the platform. Loads of 5–30 tons could be carried by these platforms. This type of vessel is recorded on an Assyrian relief.63 Elsewhere I suggested that mass killing of gazelles near the Khabur river, a tributary of the Euphrates, some 3700/3500 cal BC, was intended to obtain numerous hides for the purpose of making floats. In sum, when discussing the transmission of successful products of the Neolithic Revolution from the Fertile Crescent, we should take into account the different waterways. We can predict that, with the increase of underwater archaeology, a chance discovery will provide the needed physical evidence.

Conclusions Once cultivation by mobile hunter-gatherers became an annual practice by sedentary or semi-sedentary groups such as the Natufian, the road to additional social changes was established. From a ‘point of no return’, growing populations increased their hold over territories, a process that took place across the entire Levant from 10,000/9700–8700/8500 cal BC (or PPNA). It seems that, given the ambiguities concerning the history of flax domestication, it can be suggested that this plant, known for its fibres, was the first to be domesticated prior to the edible plants. Investments in building houses from stones and mudbricks, erection of ceremonial centres such as Göbekli Tepe, the tower of Jericho, semi-underground ‘kiva’-type buildings, together with new types of arrowheads, sickle blades and domestic female figurines, became the cultural markers of the onset of the Neolithic Revolution. The next step occurred during c. 8700/8750 through 7000 cal BC when the domestication of wheat, barley, broad bean, lentils and chickpeas as well as goat, sheep, cattle and pig was completed. Fast population increase during this later phase, mostly under favourable climatic conditions, reflects economic success. The entire set of the domestication traits occurred first in the northern Levant and then dispersed in all directions. The accomplishment of this economic revolution was greatly assisted by the use of waterways, the Euphrates, the Tigris and their tributaries, as well as by seafaring. The people of the western Zagros–Mesopotamian interaction sphere that in its early phase kept their individual cultural

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markers, among others in making particular stone tools, adopted the new subsistence system within a short time. The entire Fertile Crescent by 7000–6000 cal BC demonstrates genetically the mixing of people within the entire region.

Notes 1 Binford 2001; Kelly 2013. 2 e.g. Weissner 2016. 3 e.g. Diamond 1997; Bellwood 2005; Bar-Yosef 2017. 4 Goring-Morris and Belfer-Cohen 2011; Maher et al. 2012a. 5 Maher et al. 2012b. 6 Nadel et al. 2004. 7 Snir et al. 2015. 8 Piperno et al. 2004. 9 Lazaridis et al. 2016. 10 Goring-Morris and Belfer-Cohen 2011. 11 Bar-Yosef and Phillips 1977. 12 Tixier 1963. 13 Munro 2009. 14 Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen 1989; Belfer-Cohen and ­Bar-Yosef 2000. 15 e.g. Bar-Yosef and Valla 1991; Tchernov and Valla 1997; Valla 1998; Valla 1999; Edwards 2007; Bar-Yosef Mayer and Porat 2008; Grosman et al. 2008; Weinstein-Evron 2009; BelferCohen and Goring-Morris 2011; Bar-Yosef and Valla 2013; Edwards 2013; Edwards et al. 2013; Richter et al. 2017. 16 Valla et al. 2007; Weinstein-Evron et al. 2012; Edwards 2013; Edwards et al. 2013; Grosman et al. 2016. 17 Tanno et al. 2013. 18 Ibáñez et al. 2016. 19 Stordeur 2015. 20 Bocquet-Appel 2011. 21 Snir et al. 2015. 22 Bar-Yosef 2017. 23 Willcox et al. 2008; Willcox 2012a. 24 Hillman and Stuart Davies 1990, 39. 25 Zohary et al. 2012. 26 Zeder 2012; Colledge et al. 2013; Vigne 2015. 27 Martin and Edwards 2013. 28 Arbuckle et al. 2014. 29 Kislev 1997. 30 Kislev and Bar-Yosef 1988; Schick 1988; Shimony and Juha 1988. 31 Weiss et al. 2006; Harris 2007; Tanno and Willcox 2012; Willcox 2012b; Asouti and Fuller 2012. 32 e.g. Hillman and Stuart Davies 1990; Gopher et al. 2001; Abbo et al. 2012; Abbo and Gopher 2017; Bar-Yosef 2017. 33 Schmidt 2012. 34 Schmidt 2012; Çelik 2016. 35 Bar-Yosef 2014a. 36 Stordeur 2015. 37 Finlayson et al. 2011. 38 Cauvin 2000; Ibáñez 2008. 39 Bar-Yosef et al. 2010. 40 Borrell et al. 2015. 41 e.g. Cauvin 2000; Kuijt and Goring-Morris 2002; Kozlowski and Aurenche 2005; Simmons 2007. 42 Nishiaki 2000; Abbés 2003; Barzilai 2010.

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43 44 45 46 47

Binder 2007. Lazaridis et al. 2016; Broushaki et al. 2016. Goring-Morris and Belfer-Cohen 2014. Bar-Yosef and Alon 1988; Hershman 2014. Kvavavdze et al. 2009; Bar-Yosef et al. 2011; Song et al. 2017. 48 Bonani 1995; Schick 1995; Shimony 1995. 49 Schick 1988. 50 Alfaro Giner 2012. 51 Diederichsen and Hammer 1995; Fu 2011; Zohary et al. 2012. 52 Helbaek 1969; van Zeist 1972. 53 Allaby et al. 2005, 58, 63. 54 Herbig and Maier 2011; van Zeist 1972; van Zeist and BakkerHeeres 1975; 1986; van Zeist and Roller 1991/1992; Zohary et al. 2012, 103. 55 van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres 1975; 1986. 56 Shimony 1995. 57 Fuller et al. 2012, but see Bar-Yosef 2014b; 2017. 58 Vigne et al. 2012. 59 Stordeur 2012. 60 e.g. Ashkenazi 1957; Barnette 1958; McGrail 2004; Bar-Yosef 2016. 61 Ashkenazi 1957; McGrail 2004. 62 Barnette 1958. 63 Casson 1971.

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Kvavadze, E., Bar-Yosef, O., Belfer-Cohen, A., Boaretto, E., Jakeli, N., Matskevich, Z. and Meshveliani, T. (2009) 30,000-year-old wild flax fibers. Science 325(5946), 1359. Lazaridis, I. et al. (2016) The genetic structure of the world’s first farmers. Nature 536, 419–424. Maher, L.A., Richter, T., Macdonald, D.A., Jones, M.D., Martin, L., Stock, J.T. and Petraglia, M.D. (2012) Twenty thousand-yearold huts at a hunter-gatherer settlement in eastern Jordan. PLoS ONE 7(2), e31447. Maher, L.A., Richter, T. and Stock, J.T. (2012) The Pre-Natufian Epipaleolithic: long-term behavioral trends in the Levant. Evolutionary Anthropology 21, 69–82. Martin, L. and Edwards, Y. (2013) Diverse strategies: evaluating the appearance and spread of domestic caprines in the southern Levant. In S. Colledge, J. Conolly, K. Dobney, K. Manning and S. Shennan (eds) The Origins and Spread of Domestic Animals in Southwest Asia and Europe, 49–82. Walnut Creek, CA, Left Coast Press. McGrail, S. (2004) Boats of the World from the Stone Age to the Medieval Times. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Munro, N.D. (2009) Integrating Inter- & Intra-Site Analyses of Epipalaeolithic Faunal Assemblages from Israel. Before Farming 1, 1–18. Nadel, D., Weiss, E., Simchoni, O., Tsatskin, A., Danin, A. and Kislev, M. (2004) Stone Age hut in Israel yields world’s oldest evidence of bedding. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America  101, 6821–6826. Nishiaki, Y. (2000) Lithic Technology of Neolithic Syria. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Piperno, D.R., Weiss, E., Holst, I. and Nadel, D. (2004) Processing of wild cereal grains in the Upper Palaeolithic revealed by starch grain analysis. Nature 430, 670–673. Richter, T., Arranz-Atateeguoi, A., Yeomens, L. and Boaretto, E. (2017) High resolution AMS dates from Shubayqa 1, northeast Jordan reveal complex origins of Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian in the Levant. Scientific Reports  717025 (2017). https://doi. org/10.1038/s41598-017-17096-5. Schick, T. (1988) Cordage, basketry, and fabrics. In O. Bar-Yosef and D. Alon (eds) Nahal Hemar Cave, 31–43. Jerusalem, Department of Antiquities and Museums; Ministry of Education and Culture, Jerusalem. Schick, T. (1995) A 10,000 year old comb from Wadi Murabba’at in the Judean Desert. Atiqot 27, 199–202. Schmidt, K. (2012) Göbekli Tepe: A Stone Age Sanctuary in SouthEastern Anatolia. Berlin, ex oriente e.V.; ArchaeNova e.V. Shimony, C. (1995) Fiber identification. Atiqot 27, 204. Shimony, C. and Juha, R. (1988) The fibres and yarn measurements. ‘Atiqot 18, 44. Simmons, A.H. (2007) The Neolithic Revolution in the Near East: Transforming the Human Landscape. Tucson, University of Arizona Press. Snir, A., Nadel, D., Groman-Yaroslavski, I., Melamed, Y., Sternberg, M., Bar-Yosef, O., Weiss, E. and Volis, S. (2015) The origin of cultivation and proto-weeds, long before Neolithic farming. PLoS ONE 10(7), e0131422. Song, Y., Cohen, D.J., Shi, J., Wu, X., Kvavadze, E., Goldberg, P., Zhang, S., Zhang, Y. and Bar-Yosef, O. (2017) Environmental reconstruction and dating of Shizitan 29, Shanxi province: an

early microblade site in north China. Journal of Archaeological Science 79, 19–35. Stordeur, D. (2012) Les villages et l’organisation des groupes au néolithique précéramique A: l’exemple de Jerf el Ahmar, Syrie du nord. In J.-L. Montero Fenollos (ed.) Du village néolithique à la ville Syro-Mésopotamienne, 35–54. Ferrol, Universidad da Coruña. Stordeur, D. (2015) Le village de Jerf El-Ahmar (Syrie, 9500–8900 av. J.C.): l’architecture, mirroir d’une sociéte néolithique complex. Paris, CNRS Éditions. Tanno, K.-I., Willcox, G., Muhesen, S., Nishiaki, Y., Kanjo, Y. and Akazawa, T. (2013) Preliminary results from analysis of charred plant remains from a burnt Natufian building at Dederiyeh cave in northwest Syria. In O. Bar-Yosef and F. Valla (eds) Natufian Foragers in the Levant: Terminal Pleistocene Changes in Western Asia, 83–87. Ann Arbor, MI, Berghahn Books. Tanno, K.-I. and Willcox, G. (2012) Distinguishing wild and domestic wheat and barley spikelets from Early Holocene sites in the Near East. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 21, 107–115. Tchernov, E. and Valla, F.R. (1997) Two new dogs, and other Natufian dogs from the southern Levant. Journal of Archaeological Science 24, 65–95. Tixier, J. (1963) Typologie de l’Epipaléolithique du Maghreb. Paris, Arts et métiers graphiques. Valla, F.R. (1998) Natufian seasonality: a guess. In T.R. Rocek and O. Bar-Yosef (eds) Seasonality and Sedentism: Archaeological Perspectives from Old and New World Sites, 93–108. Cambridge, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Valla, F.R. (1999) The Natufian: a coherent thought? In W. Davies and R. Charles (eds) Dorothy Garrod and the Progress of the Palaeolithic, 224–241. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Valla, F.R., Khalaily, H., Valladas, H., Kaltnecker, E., Bocquetin, F., Cabellos, T., Bar-Yosef Mayer, D., Le Dosseur, G., Regev, L., Chu, V., Weiner, S., Boaretto, E., Samuelian, N., Valentin, B., Delerue, S., Poupeau, G., Bridault, A., Rabinovich, R., Simmons, T., Zohar, I., Ashkenazi, S., Delgado Huertas, A., Spiro, B., Mienis, H.K., Rosen, A.M., Porat, N. and BelferCohen, A. (2007) Les fouilles de Ain Mallaha (Eynan) de 2003 a 2005: quatrieme rapport preliminaire. Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society 37, 132–383. van Zeist, W. (1972) Palaeobotanical results of the 1970 season at Çayönü, Turkey. Helinium 12(1), 3–19. van Zeist, W. and Bakker-Heeres, J.A.H. (1975) Evidence of seed cultivation before 6000 BC. Journal of Archaeological Science 2, 215–219. van Zeist, W. and Bakker-Heeres, J.A.H. (1986) Archaeobotanical studies in the Levant: III. Late Paleolithic Mureybet. Palaeohistoria 26, 171–199. van Zeist, W. and Roller, G.J. de (1991/1992) The plant husbandry of Aceramic Çayönü, southeast Turkey. Palaeohistoria 33/34, 65–96. Vigne, J.-D. (2015) Early domestication and farming: what should we know or do for a better understanding? Anthropozoologica 50(2), 123–150. Vigne, J.-D., Briois, F., Zazzo, A., Willcox, G., Cucchi, T., Thiébault, S., Carrère, I., Franel, Y., Touquert, R., Martin, C., Moreau, C., Comby, C. and Guilaine, J. (2012) First wave of cultivators spread to Cyprus at least by 10,600 y ago. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 109(22), 8445–8449.

2.  The Neolithic Revolution in the Fertile Crescent Weinstein-Evron, M. (2009) Archaeology in the Archives: Unveiling the Natufian Culture of Mount Carmel. Leiden, Brill. Weinstein-Evron, M., Yeshurun, R., Kaufman, D., Eckmeier, E. and Boaretto, E. (2012) New 14C dates for the Early Natufian of El-Wad terrace, Mount Carmel, Israel. Radiocarbon 54(3–4), 813–822. Weiss, E., Kislev, M.E. and Hartmann, A. (2006) Autonomous cultivation before domestication. Science 312(5780), 1608–1610. Weissner, P. (2016) The rift between science and humanism: what’s data got to do with it? Current Anthropology 57, 145–166. Willcox, G. (2012a) Searching for the origins of arable weeds in the Near East. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 21, 163–166. Willcox, G. (2012b) The beginnings of cereal cultivation and domestication in southwest Asia. In D.T. Potts (ed) A Companion

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to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Volume I, 163–180. Malden, MA, Wiley-Blackwell. Willcox, G. and Stordeur, D. (2012) Large-scale cereal processing before domestication during the tenth millennium cal BC in northern Syria. Antiquity 86, 99–114. Willcox, G., Fornite, S. and Herveux, L. (2008) Early Holocene cultivation before domestication in northern Syria. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 17, 313–325. Zeder, M. (2012) Domestication of animals. Journal of Archaeological Research 68(2), 161–190. Zohary, D., Hopf, M. and Weiss, E. (2012) Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The Origin and Spread of Cultivated Plants in Southwest Asia, Europe and the Mediterranean Basin. 4th edn. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

3 Early wool of Mesopotamia, c. 7000–3000 BC. Between prestige and economy Catherine Breniquet

As seen from the Old Babylonian period, Mesopotamia is the ‘Land of Wool’. Sheep are herded for their meat and wool. Huge manufacturers produce cheap standardised fabrics and clothing. This situation is often interpreted as a specific adaptation to the arid environment since prehistoric times. However, the natural evolution of the alluvium from the beginning of the Holocene period shows that villages and cities emerged in a marshy landscape where sheep are rare. So the socio-economic development of the local Ubaidian communities, from villages to chiefdoms, then to the first urban states around 4000 BC, seems to be the key parameter. Sheep should have become the animal of prestige. Wool, used for itself and for clothing, appears as a symbol of power and as a currency in a primitive market economy. Keywords: Mesopotamia, wool, textile, Ubaid, Tell el ‘Oueili, political economy

Introduction For most archaeologists, the ancient Near East appears as one of the oldest laboratories of human experience: Early Neolithic, the first cities, writing, empires, etc. The general evolution in the area is well documented now, but some issues remain unsolved, as one awaits fieldwork bringing new data or sometimes questions that have never been asked of the material. Among these, the link between environment, human choices, technologies and the uses of fibres for clothing and other purposes in the political economy is one of the most stunning challenges. By using different sources, this paper will propose a synthetic overview of the role and development of wool in archaic Mesopotamia (7000–3000 BC).1

General context Mesopotamia is known as the Land of the Two Rivers, Tigris and Euphrates, and covers more or less the territory of present-day Iraq. As seen from the Old Babylonian period (the first centuries of the 2nd millennium BC), Mesopotamia is the ‘Land of Wool’ in the written archives. However, the term ‘Mesopotamia’ is quite imperfect and was never used by the inhabitants of the area themselves, who referred to it

as Assyria for the north and as Sumer or Babylonia for the south. The Land of Wool was Babylonia, where sheep were herded for their meat and wool. Since the Ur III period at the end of the 3rd millennium BC, large workshops with female workers and their children transformed this raw material into fabrics, producing cheap standardised fabrics and clothing on a previously unknown scale.2 This situation is often interpreted as a specific adaptation to an arid environment prevailing since prehistoric times. A well-known, albeit now discredited explanation in our historiography is the ‘oriental despotism’ of K. Wittfogel.3 By emphasising the role of irrigation in the cultural evolution process, he opened indirectly the way to the prehistoric diffusionist hypothesis.4 Southern Mesopotamia appears as a desert landscape where life is difficult and where humans did not settle as early as elsewhere. Irrigation would have provided the technical background to colonisation from the centre of Mesopotamia (occupied by the Samarran culture) and to civilisation. Later, when the great civilisations develop, such as the Sumerians, written sources shed more light and allow for the evaluation of the economic role of nomads, and/or of the palace and the temple, as well as those of the private owners in the

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‘wool revolution’ since the advent of urban times.5 However, all this reconstruction, if not false, needs reviewing. In the light of data concerning the prehistory of the alluvium, it is necessary to highlight how human choices, linked with the natural setting of the area, interfere in a wider perspective. The prehistory of Mesopotamia is a difficult field. Excavations are old. For instance, the sites that provided the early stratigraphy of Babylonia, such as Ur or Eridu, were excavated in the 1920s and the 1940s, when field methods were less accurate than now.6 Everyone knows that mud-brick architecture is not easy to excavate for an untrained archaeologist, and the problems resulting from poor stratigraphic control continue to plague our general framework for prehistoric times. When excavations are not so old, such as those of Tell el ‘Oueili, carried out by a French team in the 1980s, one of the most ancient sites of Babylonia along with Eridu, they were unfortunately stopped by the Gulf War, without having uncovered the expected new information.7 Also, in order to connect prehistoric to historical times, we have to deal with different sources (archaeology, texts, iconography, etc.) that are always in conflict.8 The main risks are deducing one thing from other sources of evidence at the risk of multiplying errors, or to take the better-documented period such as Ur III as a model and to project it backwards to interpret the prehistoric period. The Ubaidian culture is now known to be present in southern Mesopotamia since at least the 7th millennium, long before the Ur III period. Its development from early farmers to complex chiefdoms and then from chiefdoms to early states and cities at the end of the 4th millennium opens the way for us to take an evolutionist perspective (Fig. 3.1).9

Textile archaeology of Mesopotamia Two main textile fibres were in use in Mesopotamia over time, vegetal (i.e. flax) and animal (wool from sheep). One never replaces the other during Mesopotamian history. These two fibres have different properties, involving different transformation processes and different uses. If they are the most common textile fibres of Mesopotamia, they are probably not the only ones ever used.10 However, other fibres, such as bast, are almost undocumented. Different kinds of textiles exist since the Neolithic period: real fabric (tabby or basket-weave) suggesting the use of a loom at Tell Aswad, Çatalhöyük or Jarmo as early as the PPNA/B period, twined textiles at Halula or Nahal Hemar.11 Most likely, they suggest also different uses of textiles: for funerary purposes, clothing, bags, etc. A common belief suggests that wool is the first textile fibre to be used by prehistoric humans. It has been convincingly demonstrated that this is not the case: everywhere in the ancient world, plant fibres are used well before animal fibres.12 For the Near East, the most ancient sample known,

a fragment of a cord or a rope, comes from Ohalo II and dates back to the Late Palaeolithic period.13 The oldest known textiles of the Near East and of Mesopotamia are vegetal. Domestic flax occurs in the Near East as early as agriculture,14 during the PPNA period (c. 9000 BC). Despite the fact that textiles are attested as imprints as early as the PPNA period in Jerf el’ Ahmar, for instance, or Nahal Hemar, actual textile remains from Tell Halula or from Çatalhöyük belong to the PPNB period.15 For southern Mesopotamia stricto sensu, we have both imprints of tabby on bitumen in the first Ubaidian levels of Tell el’ Oueili (Ubaid 0), production tools such as spindle whorls in each level, seeds of domesticated flax and a fabric made of plant fibre, possibly flax, in Eridu in an Ubaid 4 level.16 However, in the Near East, generally speaking, wool seems to appear as a new raw material as early as the PPNB period with the domestication of sheep. This phenomenon appears well before the so-called ‘secondary products revolution’.17 For a long time, the first samples of wool were the textiles from Çatalhöyük and Nahal Hemar. Both remain highly debatable, and no consensus on the identification of the fibres has clearly emerged, despite considerable advances made in textile research in recent decades.18 Nevertheless, other arguments are now used to demonstrate the use of wool in the early periods: slaughtering patterns developed by the archaeozoologists19 and the introduction of spindle whorls apparently connected with wool processing (Fig. 3.1).20 The different steps that brought about the development of wool are still discussed.21 Wool is a consequence of the domestication process (started around 7500 BC). The wild ancestor of the domestic sheep, Ovis orientalis, living in the Taurus Mountains, has no wool but a light down covered by long hairs.22 Until the end of the Bronze Age, sheep had to be plucked, as they moulted yearly during the spring. Since skins or wool fabrics have not been preserved in Mesopotamian soils, it is hard to have a precise idea of what the coats of sheep looked like before the introduction of iconography. Probably wool was collected in very small quantities (less than 1 kg per animal is the average for the historical periods). It could have been of poor quality, like Soay sheep wool, and multicoloured, forcing people to select fibres by their thickness and colour. However, if this reconstruction is valid for the Near East generally speaking, detailed information is still lacking in southern Mesopotamia. Recent conclusions about the evolution of the landscape suggest caution when talking about the introduction of sheep and wool in the daily life.

A changing landscape The site of Tell el ‘Oueili, explored by a French team directed by Jean-Louis Huot, provides some of the most recent information concerning the prehistory of Mesopotamia. Contrary

3.  Early wool of Mesopotamia, c. 7000–3000 BC. Between prestige and economy

Figure 3.1: General cultural evolution of southern Mesopotamia (author’s original)

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to the previous hypothesis concerning the establishment of people in the area, excavations brought to light numerous new pieces of evidence. Southern Mesopotamia was inhabited from 6500 BC at least. Contrary to an older belief, the inhabitants did not come from the middle of Mesopotamia. They probably settled there a long time ago: bedrock was not reached during our excavations at Oueili. Their material culture belongs to the Ubaid culture with tripartite architecture, a hand-made buff ware with dark painting, irrigated agriculture including flax cultivation, and herding. We added to the Ubaidian Eridu sequence a phase 0 (and nearly a minus zero phase) which shows the beginning of the pottery culture.23 Generally speaking, the Ubaid period allows us to see the evolution from villages to chiefdoms, then from chiefdoms to the early state.24 The information provided by the excavations and the environmental data collected by Paul Sanlaville suggest that the area was quite different at the beginning of the 7th millennium BC from now.25 We now understand better the natural evolution of the alluvium from the beginning of the Holocene period. Neolithic villages and first cities developed in a marshy landscape where sheep were very rare.26 A complex balance between geomorphological evolution with the rise of the sea level, bringing about the creation of the Persian Gulf, the progress of the alluvium that filled the Tigris and Euphrates valleys and the appearance of a steppic landscape on the margins, characterised the evolution of the area between 15,000 and 4000 BC.27 Similar conclusions have been provided by Jennifer Pournelle on the basis of her interpretation of Corona photographs.28 At the beginning of the Holocene period, hunter-gathers and first farmers probably settled the Gulf area, which could be another new Neolithic cradle.29 The Tigris and the Euphrates continued down to the Strait of Hormuz through deep-cut valleys in a varied landscape.

Figure 3.2: A village in the Iraqi marshes in the 1990s (author’s original)

Several geomorphological events took place gradually between 10,000 and 4000 BC, such as the rise of sea level with the global warming at the beginning of the Holocene period bringing about the filling of the Persian Gulf area, the deep siltation of the valleys that covered entirely the original bedrock in several metres of sediments, making southern Mesopotamia an alluvial plain, the advent of marshes at the confluence of the rivers. The landscape was not a desert as it is today; rather, it has to be imagined as the Iraqi marshes as they were before the 1990s, palm trees aside (Fig. 3.2). At the end of the 4th and at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, the natural setting of the southern part of the alluvium was a mixture of marshes, irrigated landscapes and steppic areas surrounding the first cities. This reconstruction fits well with the archaeological and iconographic data (as seen from a stela and the cylinder seals of the first urban period).30 At the beginning of the Holocene, people were probably settled close to the rivers. However, our chances of finding these early settlements are close to zero. Only some sites localised higher on the so-called turtlebacks such as Tell el ‘Oueili might be found. Returning now to our first question: in such a landscape, what happened to the sheep?

The sheep revolution The Ubaid period lasted for several millennia, from the 7th millennium to the end of the 4th. It is partially attested at Eridu, but the Oueili sequence is more complete. During this time, sheep were represented in low numbers at Tell el ‘Oueili. Information is still incomplete, as the excavations stopped, but sheep represent less than 10% of the total amount of domesticated animals. The graphic produced by the late archaeozoologist, Jean Desse, remains imperfect as it gives the percentages of domesticated animals per year of excavations (Fig. 3.3). It could appear as an irrelevant parameter, but it has to be understood within the frame of the excavation’s process (acquiring a more complete sample). Other species, much more adapted to the aquatic environment, are present: cattle and pigs (Figs 3.4 and 3.5), suggesting once again that there are maybe other modalities of domestication for another neolithisation. Although textile production tools are present in every Ubaidian levels (spindle whorls, weights) as well as imprints of tabby (Fig. 3.6), we have no direct evidence of woollen fabric in southern Mesopotamia, even for the historical periods covered by this paper. At the end of the 4th millennium BC, with the advent of an urban way of life involving the development of iconography and writing, different categories of sheep are recorded both on the cylinder seals and in the archaic texts – with or without fleece (‘hairy’), twisted horns, crop and short or fat tail31 – as well as their uses: meat, milk, wool

3.  Early wool of Mesopotamia, c. 7000–3000 BC. Between prestige and economy

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Figure 3.5: Clay figurine of a pig from Tell el’ Oueili, Ubaid period (Mission archéologique française de Larsa-Oueili)

Figure 3.3: Percentage of domesticated animals in Tell el ‘Oueili (Mission archéologique française de Larsa-Oueili)

Figure 3.6: Imprint of tabby on bitumen from Tell el’ Oueili (Mission archéologique française de Larsa-Oueili)

Figure 3.4: Clay figurine of a bull from Tell el’ Oueili, Ubaid period (Mission archéologique française de Larsa-Oueili)

(fat-tailed sheep, wool sheep). Different qualities of wool are not recorded before the first half of the 3rd millennium.32 The interesting points in these records are the diversity of sheep, which fit with the reconstruction of their genetic evolution (as seen from current models), the increasing number of sheep in a flock, the appearance of the fat-tailed sheep and iconography of shepherds (also recorded as professionals in the texts).33 The fat-tailed sheep is well adapted to the arid landscape of the steppic margins of the cities’ territories. This means that the conclusions drawn from both texts and environmental data are consistent: sheep were represented in only small numbers during the prehistoric periods,

becoming more numerous at some point. However, we must be cautious regarding this ‘sheep revolution’. Texts refer to several ‘large’ herds of 1500 animals each for Uruk,34 and this is also consistent with the rest of the data: flocks increase but remain small, despite the development of herding practices. To give a comparison, a few centuries later, the flocks of the city of Ebla amount to 80,000 sheep.35 The archaic texts from Uruk suggest that sheep were herded for several purposes, among which we find wool.36 If we agree that more sheep produce more wool (whatever its quality), this apparently increasing need for wool calls for an appropriate answer.

Uses of wool In order to answer the question, ‘Wool for which purposes?’, textual data give us two answers: wool for wool and wool for cloth.37 One of the main paradigms in our field of research is that wool, or by-products such as clothing, are involved in long-distance trade.38 It is true that the need for exotic materials increased at the end of the 4th millennium with the advent of an urban way of life. Wool is light, easy to

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transport and could appear as perfectly suitable for exchange. People from Mesopotamia would have brought wool to the peripheries where sheep were rare and would have come back with metal, wood or semi-precious stones. It is clear that such a situation existed in the past, even the recent past, and is plausible. For instance, wool played an important role during the European industrial revolution. However, the explanation could appear as too limited, due to the complexity of the Mesopotamian case. The need for wool is also an ‘internal’ problem for the first cities.39 Since the urban period, the increasing complexity of society led to the emergence of new categories of workers. People were not just herders or farmers any more, they were also scribes, craftsmen, bricklayers, etc. working for the palace, the temple or both. Mesopotamia had no monetary economy, and workers received their ‘salary’ (which was in fact an allocation) in the form of grain, oil, fabric and wool. It is what Ignace Gelb and all the historians of the ancient Near East have called the ‘ration system’.40 This allocation could be given more or less monthly,41 although this situation is hard to generalise. The quantities of each product were modulated according to complex and unclear parameters, never clearly explained, involving the work done but also the rank of people. Regarding wool, during the 3rd millennium BC an average of 2 kg per year seems to have been disbursed.42 We do not know what people did with that wool. It would probably be a mistake to think that they transformed wool into yarns or cloth. Wool was probably exchanged within the context of a limited market (in an economic sense), to have access to some exceptional and controlled products. Wool acted as a primitive currency. In such a context, one can wonder if this exchanged wool did not come back finally to the great ruling organisations that distributed it initially. In the first city-states, such as Uruk, wealth was based on staple finance, agriculture, husbandry and handicrafts.43 This kind of production of wealth requires labour, transportation and storage. However, it is impossible to find a link between producers (herds, herders, spinners, weavers) and consumers in the archaic texts.44 We are far from the Old Assyrian situation, for instance, and we cannot extrapolate from a clear and more recent situation. The logic of production and consumption are definitely distinct. This fact, and the status of wool as a possible primitive currency, suggest that wool was not available through domestic breeding. Wool (and sheep), or a large number of them, belonged to the state or the first rulers, chiefs or big men and was manipulated by the great ruling structures, palace and/or temple. We know that the Mesopotamian economy was a mixture of reciprocity, redistribution and market.45 In this context, wool appears as a raw material (or transformed product) obtained by redistribution and as an archaic money. As in other cases in human history, wool appears as a major driver of the early states.46 Wool was

probably considered as wealth, especially since the name of the gold and silver storage rooms of Ebla is the House of Wool, É.siki.47 Let us now turn to woollen fabrics. Despite the paucity of our sources, the role of textiles in daily life as well as in political economy can be reconstructed. The skills involved in textile technology, the circulation of textiles and even the ‘style’ of fashion play a major role. As far as we know, fabrics involved in the ration system (clothing for the workers or the dependants) are badly documented but some seem to be linked with measurements, suggesting official orders and control of production for redistribution.48 Some other weaving products are linked with colours, which suggest thus that they were woollen fabrics, as fabrics made of plant fibres are difficult to dye.49 Woollen garments are also used in two other ways: distribution during cultic festivals,50 wool could be offered to the gods51 and for dressing the so-called ‘King-Priest’.52 In this perspective, the invention of clothing has to be clarified.

Wool economy It comes as no surprise that there are figurines from Late Neolithic contexts showing numerous individuals naked, in a state of adorned nudity (wearing jewellery, labrets, belts, straps, scarification or tattoos, etc.) or with a minimalist clothing (Fig. 3.7) We can postulate that the first textiles were made of vegetal fibres, well adapted to the hot environment, but we have no direct information about them in southern Mesopotamia, with the exception of the Eridu textile. Unfortunately, it is not possible to identify it from the only published photograph.53 Different technologies probably existed: textile technologies (needle-looping or twining, for example) and true weaving with a more complex technology and loom (threads perpendicular in both systems,

Figure 3.7: Female figurine from Tell el’ Oueili, Ubaid period (Mission archéologique française de Larsa-Oueili)

3.  Early wool of Mesopotamia, c. 7000–3000 BC. Between prestige and economy warp and weft, on at least a frame). Probably, too, the necessary amount of thread and its processing were different (hand-spinning without tools, spinning with a spindle and spindle whorl, etc.). Clothing appears on iconography of more complex societies (on Luristan seals and on glyptic or sculptures in the round during the Uruk period).54 Clothing seems to be always linked with official contexts involving the elite and gods, suggesting that cloth was invented for prestige and not for a moral or utilitarian purpose. Other uses can be postulated in urban contexts. Garments can be involved in funerals (offerings), for military purposes (paying the soldiers), in diplomacy or alliances (official gifts), in taxes or tribute. Garments can be offered to gods, too.55 In this general cultural context, what could be the role of wool? McCorriston already attempted to theorise the question and talked about a ‘wool revolution’ to explain the increasing place of wool in Mesopotamian society.56 She emphasised the simpler ‘chaîne opératoire’ of wool compared to flax, a process that was easier and ‘cheaper’ to organise and that drove the reorganisation of productive labour. Part of her demonstration is built on supposed similarities between the Uruk period and the better-documented Ur III state. It is possible to disagree with this last point, as the centralised Ur III state is quite different in organisation and size from the Uruk one, but her paper raised a fresh hypothesis. However, it does not explain the role of wool among other fibres. Adaptation to the changing environment is probably not the key parameter. One can wonder, why wool and not flax? Flax is not in competition with wool, it is in competition with cultivated fields. Flax requires good land with plenty of water, but the territory of the first cities is small. Sheep breeding needs space, and people can send animals to distant pastures. It is what they did from the Uruk period. It means that wool production is easier to delocalise, wool is light, easy to transport (if the sheep are not in the city), can wait for labour, and can be sent to the producers and collected as part of corvée work (forced labour) or taxes. In many ethnohistoric cases, people pay their taxes to the state in spun thread.57 The increasing need for spun thread for fabric production is, however, impossible to confirm or to calculate in terms of hours of labour for women (and maybe for the whole household). We have to remain cautious with gender-oriented interpretations, as we do not know who was involved in the operation. If more wool was needed to support the emerging state organisation, more sheep were required. But by using distant pastures, sheep breeding probably played an active role in the delimitation of the first Sumerian cities’ borders. As a consequence, sheep breeding could have played a role in their conflicts, too, at least as an apparent reason for war. However, the balance remains complex between wool and flax during the entire

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Mesopotamian history. Wool was probably considered as the first fibre of prestige before becoming more widely available.58 Linen remains in use during the 3rd millennium BC for religious purposes (sanctuary curtains, priests’ dresses, etc.).59 The question of why woollen cloth appears can now be seen as fully solved. For European archaeologists, the interpretation of woollen clothing may be that it brings more comfort to people in cold climates.60 But despite the temperature differences between the morning and the afternoon, southern Mesopotamia cannot be seen as a country with a cold climate. Even if it is hard to recognise woollen garments on iconography, we have no evidence of coats or heavy mantles such as those found in temperate Europe. We can admit that they may have existed, but other reasons have to be found to explain the development of woollen fabrics. Wool appears as a new material that occasions many possibilities for creativity. Suspended spinning or warp-weighted looms could have been invented for wool. Wool can be dyed, woven in tabby and twill, opening the way to the visual arts, especially for dressing the élite or for official gifts and creating new identities. If we agree that wool belongs mostly to the great ruling structures (palaces and temples), woollen garments given during official ceremonies are official presents (one cannot find them in the market, one cannot make them at home). To give cloth is a way to aggregate people into a community in terms of kinship.61 We have absolutely no evidence about the quality of these first given garments, as the Uruk texts are too elusive. We can assume that their quality was modulated to the rank of the receiver or wearer. Woollen garments offered as gifts may have seemed to be in competition with garments made of ordinary plant fibres produced in the domestic sphere for millennia. They led to another new kinship essential to the emerging states and their new social order. Fabrics materialise family or kin-oriented relationships, even the most fictional ones. The written evidence from the Uruk archaic texts identify the Uruk period as a terminus post quem for the extension of sheep herding and wool processing. But they give no evidence as to the beginning of this new socio-economic system. Information is lacking, but it is tempting to ­postulate that it emerged during the second half of the Ubaid period, i.e. after 5000 BC. After this date, we know from surveys that settlements increased in size, integrating more and more people from small sites.62 Monumental buildings appeared; whether they are temples or not, they are not houses, and they could not have been built by a single family. Exchanges with foreign territories increased, too; ceramics started to be produced on a wider scale with new tools such as the slow wheel by specialists. Despite the absence of clear social hierarchy (in the graves, for instance), all these

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Catherine Breniquet

parameters together define the Ubaid as a chiefdom, with new behaviours regarding environment, family, exchanges, governance, etc.63 The Mesopotamian case is a difficult one. For the prehistoric periods, fresh data are lacking, and even through a combination of several sources some information is not available. Despite the lack of direct sources, we have tried to reconstruct the mechanisms that made Mesopotamia the Land of Wool. Wool is not the first textile fibre to be used and its use emerged under specific environmental conditions in close connection with human choices. From these points of view, the Mesopotamian case requires a complex rhetoric, involving many aspects of the properties of fibres, the nature of production, the uses of fibres and so on. Any simplistic answer remains inadequate as many aspects are definitely interwoven: environmental, technical, symbolic, economic and more. It means that we have to develop, at least in the present day while new field research has long been impossible, a processual and post-modern approach, which is a huge paradoxical challenge!

Notes 1

The author wishes to express her warmest thanks to the editors for their invitation and their assistance. 2 Lambert 1961; Waetzold 1972; Maekawa 1980. 3 Wittfogel 1977. 4 Hole 1994. 5 Sallaberger 2014. 6 Huot 1996, 159–167. 7 Huot 1996, 167–179. 8 Breniquet 2013, 1–6. 9 Forest 1996. 10 Breniquet 2013, 7–8. 11 Breniquet 2008, 55. 12 Rast-Eicher 2005. 13 Nadel et al. 1994. 14 van Zeist 1974. 15 Breniquet 2008, 55. 16 Gillet 1981, 318; Breniquet 1987, 152; 1991, 320; Neef 1991, 327. 17 Sherratt 1981; Greenfield 2010. 18 Breniquet 2008, 90–97; Breniquet 2014, 55–56. 19 Helmer 2000; 2007; Sana 2013. 20 Rooijjakkers 2013. 21 Rast-Eicher 2014. 22 Ryder 1969; 1993; 2007. 23 Huot 1994. 24 Forest 1996; Huot 2005. 25 Sanlaville 1989; Sanlaville 2002. 26 Desse 1987, 160. 27 Lambeck 1996; Rose 2010. 28 Pournelle; 2007. 29 Breniquet; 2016. 30 Amiet 1980 nos 203B (garden and cultivators), 609 (pig-­ hunting in the marshes), 618 (herders and their flocks).

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Ryder 1984; Helmer 2014. Steinkeller 1995. Green 1980. Englund 1998, 148. Archi 1993, 47. Englund 1998, 143. Englund 1998, 150–153. Crawford 1973; Fink 2016. Wilkinson 2018. Gelb 1965. Biga 2014, 145–147. Englund 1998, 151. D’Altroy 1985. Englund 1998, 152. Warburton 2016. Murra 1962. Archi 1993, 47. Englund 1998, 151 and 153. Englund 1998, 98. Englund 1998, 127. Szarzinska 1993. Englund 1998, 152 n. 349. Gillet 1981, 318. Breniquet 2013, 9–10. Szarzinska 1993. McCorriston 1997. Murra 1965. Huot 2000. Waetzold 1980. Rast-Eicher 2013. Schneider and Weiner 1989. Adams 1966; 1972. Forest 1996; Breniquet 2006.

References Adams, R.M. (1966) The Evolution of Urban Society: Early Mesopotamia and Prehispanic Mexico. Chicago, Aldine. Adams, R.M. and Nissen, H. (1972) The Uruk Countryside: The Natural Setting of Urban Societies. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Amiet, P. (1980) La glyptique mésopotamienne archaïque. Paris, Editions du CNRS. Archi, A. (1993) Trade and administrative practice: the case of Ebla. Altorientalische Forschungen 20, 43–58. Bichler, P. (ed.) (2005) Hallstatt Textiles: Technical Analysis, Scientific Investigations and Experiment on the Iron Ages Textiles. Oxford, Archaeopress. Biga, M.-G. (2014) Some aspects of the wool economy at Ebla (Syria, 24th century BC). In C. Breniquet and C. Michel (eds) Wool Economy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean, From the Beginnings of Sheep Husbandry to Institutional Textile Industry, 139–150. Oxford and Philadelphia, Oxbow Books. Breniquet, C. (1987) Les petits objets de la fouille de Tell el ‘Oueili. In J.-L. Huot (ed.) Larsa, 10e campagne et ’Oueili, 4e campagne, 1993: rapport préliminaire, 144–150. Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations.

3.  Early wool of Mesopotamia, c. 7000–3000 BC. Between prestige and economy Breniquet, C. (1991) Les petits objets de l’époque d’Obeid découverts à Tell el ‘Oueili en 1985. In J.-L. Huot (ed.) Oueili: travaux de 1985, 313–320. Paris, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Breniquet, C. (1996) Les petits objets découverts à Tell el ‘Oueili en 1987 et 1989. In J.-L. Huot (ed.) ‘Oueili: travaux de 1987 et 1989, 151–162. Paris, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Breniquet, C. (2006) Dans le mouton, tout est bon: remarques sur les usages sociaux-économiques des animaux en Mésopotamie, de la préhistoire récente au iiie millénaire av. J.-C. In B. Lion and C. Michel (eds) De la domestication au tabou: le cas des suidés au Proche-Orient Ancien, 247–254. Paris, De Boccard. Breniquet, C. (2008) Essai sur le tissage en Mésopotamie, Des premières communautés sédentaires au milieu du IIIe millénaire avant J.-C. Paris, De Boccard. Breniquet, C. (2013) Functions and uses of textiles in the Ancient Near East. In M.-L. Nosch, H. Koefoed and E. Andersson Strand (eds) Textile Production and Consumption in the Ancient Near East: Archaeology, Epigraphy, Iconography, 1–25. Oxford, Oakville, Oxbow Books. Breniquet, C. (2014) The archaeology of wool in Early Mesopotamia: sources, methods, perspectives. In C. Breniquet and C. Michel (eds) Wool Economy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean: From the Beginnings of Sheep Husbandry to Institutional Textile Industry, 52–78. Oxford, Philadelphia, Oxbow Books. Breniquet, C. (2016) Tell Es-Sawwan, Irak: essai de synthèse et de prospective sur la néolithisation de la plaine Mésopotamienne. Paléorient 42(1), 137–149. Crawford, H. (1973) Mesopotamia’s invisible exports in the third millennium. World Archaeology 5, 213–241. D’Altroy, T. and Earle, T. (1985) Staple finance, wealth finance and storage in the Inca political economy. Current Anthropology 26, 187–206. Desse, J. (1987) Analyse des ossements provenant des horizons inférieurs de Tell el ‘Oueili (Obeid, 0, 1, 2, 3): campagne de 1985. In J.-L. Huot (ed.) Larsa, 10e campagne et ’Oueili, 4e campagne, 1993: rapport préliminaire, 159–160, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Englund, R. (1998) The texts from the Late Uruk periods. In J. Bauer, R. Englund and M. Krebernik (eds) Mesopotamien: Späturuk-Zeit und Frühdynastische-Zeit, 15–233. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. Fink, S. (2016) War or wool?: Means of ensuring resource-supply in 3rd millennium Mesopotamia. In K. Dross-Krüpe and M.-L. Nosch (eds) Textiles, Trade and Theories: From the Ancient Near East to the Mediterranean, 79–92. Münster, Ugarit Verlag. Forest, J.-D. (1996) Mésopotamie: l’apparition de l’Etat. Paris, Paris-Méditerranée. Gelb, I. (1965) The Ancient Mesopotamian ration system. Journal of the Near Eastern Society 42, 230–243. Gillet, J. (1981) Section C: botanical sample. In F. Safar, A.M. Mustafa and S. Lloyd (eds) Eridu, 317–318. Baghdad, State Organization of Antiquities and Heritage. Green, M. (1980) Animal husbandry at Uruk in the Archaic period. Journal of the Near Eastern Society 39(4), 1–35.

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Greenfield, H. (2010) The Secondary Products Revolution: the past, the present and the future. World Archaeology 42(1), 29–54. Helmer, D. (1992) La domestication des animaux par les hommes préhistoriques, Paris, Masson. Helmer, D. (2000) Etude de la faune mammalienne d’El Kowm 2. In Stordeur, D. (ed.) El Kowm 2: une île dans le désert, 233–257. Paris, CNRS-Editions. Helmer, D., Gourichon, L. and Vila, E. (2007) The development of the exploitation of products from Capra and Ovis (meat, milk and fleeces) from the PPNB to the Early Bronze Age in the Northern Near East. Anthropozoologica 42(2), 41–69. Hole, F. (1994) Environment instabilities and urban origins. In G. Stein and M. Rothman (eds) Chiefdoms and Early States in the Near East: The Organizational Dynamics of Complexity, 121–151. Madison, Prehistory Press. Huot, J.-L. (1994) Les premiers villageois de Mésopotamie: du village à la ville. Paris, Armand Colin. Huot, J.-L. (ed.) (1996) Oueili: travaux de 1987 et 1989. Paris, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Huot, J.-L. (2000) Existe-t-il une ‘révolution de la laine’ au début de l’âge du Bronze Oriental? In P. Matthiae (ed.) Proceedings of the First International Congress of the Archaeology of the Near East, 640–642. Roma, Università degli studi di Roma ‘La Sapienza’, Dipartimento di scienze storiche, archeologiche e antropologiche dell’antichità. Huot, J.-L. (2005) Vers l’apparition de l’état en Mésopotamie: bilan des recherches récentes. Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 2005(5), 953–973. Lambeck, K. (1996) Shoreline reconstructions for the Persian Gulf since the last glacial maximum. Earth and Planetary Science 142, 43–57. Lambert, M. (1961) Recherches sur la vie ouvrière: les ateliers de tissage de Lagash. Archiv Orientalni 29, 422–443. Maekawa, K. (1980) Female weavers and their children in Lagash: Pre-Sargonic and Ur III. Acta Sumerologica 2, 82–125. McCorriston, J. (1997) The fiber revolution: textile extensification, alienation and social stratification in Ancient Mesopotamia. Current Anthropology 38(4), 517–549. Murra, J. (1962) Cloth and its function in the Inca state. American Anthropologist 64(4), 710–728. Nadel, D., Danin, A., Werker, E., Schick, T., Kislev, M. and Stewart, K. (1994) 19 000 years old twisted fibers from Ohalo II. Current Anthropology 35(4), 451–458. Neef, R. (1991) Plant remains from archaeological sites in lowland Iraq: Tell el’ Oueili. In J.-L. Huot (ed.) Oueili: travaux de 1985, 321–329. Paris, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations. Pournelle, J. (2007) KLM to Corona: a bird’s eye view of cultural ecology and Early Mesopotamian urbanization. In E. Stone (ed.) Settlement and Society: Essays Dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams, 29–62. Los Angeles, Chicago, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press; Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Rast-Eicher, A. (2005) Bast before wool: the first textiles. In P. Bichler (ed.) Hallstatt Textiles: Technical Analysis, Scientific Investigations and Experiment on the Iron Ages Textiles, 17–31. Oxford, Archaeopress. Rast-Eicher, A. (2014) Bronze and Iron Age wools in Europe. In C. Breniquet and C. Michel (eds) Wool Economy in the Ancient

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Near East and the Aegean: From the Beginnings of Sheep Husbandry to Institutional Textile Industry, 12–21. Oxford, Philadelphia, Oxbow Books. Rast-Eicher, A. and Bender Jorgensen, L. (2013) Sheep wool in Bronze Age and Iron Age. Journal of Archaeological Science 40(2), 1224–1241. Rooijakkers, T. (2013) Spinning animal fibers at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria. Paléorient 38(1–2), 91–109. Rose, J. (2010) New light on human prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf oasis. Current Anthropology 51(6), 849–883. Ryder, M. (1969) Changes of fleece of sheep following domestication (with a note on the coat of cattle). In P. Ucko and G. Dimbledy (eds) The Domestication and Exploitation of Plants and Animals, 497–521. London, Routledge. Ryder, M. (1984) Representations, written records and wool measurements. In J. Clutton-Brock and C. Grigson (eds) Animals and Archaeology: 3. Early Herders and their Flocks, 69–82. Oxford, British Archaeological Reports. Ryder, M. (1993) Sheep and goat husbandry, with particular reference to textile fibre and milk production. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 7(1), 9–32. Ryder, M. (2007) Sheep and Man. London, Duckworth. Sallaberger, W. (2014) The value of wool in Early Bronze Age Mesopotamia: on the control of sheep and the handling of wool in the Presargonic to the Ur III periods (c. 2400 to 2000 BC). In C. Breniquet and C. Michel (eds) Wool Economy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean, from the Beginnings of Sheep Husbandry to Institutional Textile Industry, 94–114. Oxford and Philadelphia, Oxbow Books. Sana, M. and Tornero, C. (2013) Use of animal fibres during the Neolithic in the Middle Euphrates valley (Syria): an archaeozoological approach. Paléorient 38(1–2), 79–91. Sanlaville, P. (1989) Considérations sur l’évolution de la basse Mésopotamie au cours des derniers millénaires. Paléorient 15(2), 5–27. Sanlaville, P. (2002) The Deltaic complex of the Lower Mesopotamian plain and its evolution through millennia. In E. Nicholson and P. Clark (eds) The Iraqi Marshlands:

A Human and Environmental Study, 133–150. London, Politico’s Pub. Schneider, J. and Weiner, A. (1989) Introduction. In J. Schneider and A. Weiner (eds) Cloth and Human Experience, 21–29. Washington, London, Smithsonian Institution Press. Sherratt, A. (1981) Plough and pastoralism: aspects of the Secondary Products Revolution. In I. Hodder, G. Isaac and N. Hammond (eds) Pattern of the Past: Studies in Honour of David Clarke, 261–305. Cambridge, New York, Cambridge University Press. Steinkeller, P. (1995) Sheep and goat terminology in Ur III sources from Drehem. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 7, 49–70. Stordeur, D. (ed.) (2000) El Kowm 2: une île dans le désert. Paris, CNRS-Editions. Szarzinska, K. (1993) Offerings for the Goddess Inanna in Archaic Uruk. Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale 87, 7–26. van Zeist, W. and Bakker-Heeres, J. (1974) Evidence for linseed cultivation before 6000 BC. Journal of Archaeological Science 2, 215–219. Vila, E. and Helmer, D. (2014) The expansion of sheep herding and the development of wool production in the Ancient Near East: an archaeological and iconographical approach. In C. Breniquet and C. Michel (eds) Wool Economy in the Ancient Near East and the Aegean, From the Beginnings of Sheep Husbandry to Institutional Textile Industry, 22–40. Oxford and Philadelphia, Oxbow Books. Waetzold, H. (1980) Leinen. In E.F. Weidner, D.O. Edzard and E. Ebeling (eds) Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatischen Archäologie, 583–594. Berlin, de Gruyter. Warburton, D. (2016) The Fundamentals of Economics: Lessons from the Bronze Age Near East. Neuchâtel, Recherches et publications. Wilkinson, T. (2018) Cloth and currency: on the ritual-economics of Eurasian textile circulation and the origins of trade, fifth to second millenia BC. In K. Kristiansen, T. Lindkvist and J. Myrdal (eds) Trade and Civilization: Economic Networks and Cultural Ties, from Prehistory to the Early Modern Era, 25–55. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Wittfogel, K. (1964) Le Despotisme Oriental. Paris, Editions de Minuit.

4 Continuity and discontinuity in Neolithic and Chalcolithic linen textile production in the southern Levant Orit Shamir with an appendix by Antoinette Rast-Eicher

The domestication of flax was an essential prerequisite for string and textile production in the southern Levant. Linen fabrics from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period, 7th millennium BC, were preserved only in the cave deposits of Nahal Hemar. Flax fibre processing was probably based on thousands of years of experience of using bast fibres. The Neolithic products were made by techniques such as looping and knotted netting prior to the invention or adoption of the loom that was introduced by the Chalcolithic period, 6th millennium BC. The horizontal ground loom was the first to be used in the Chalcolithic period, and thus the quality of the textiles is quite good. These textiles are characterised by splicing. The first appearance of wool apparently took place only in the Middle Bronze Age, as indicated by the textiles that have been found in Jericho. It raises the question of whether wool was not yet a favoured fibre or if the kind of sheep that produce wool were not raised in this area. Keywords: flax and linen, Neolithic period, Chalcolithic period, flax, Nahal Hemar

Early flax fibre The raw material used in all Neolithic and Chalcolithic textiles in the southern Levant, the lands that are today known as Israel, Palestine and Jordan, is domesticated flax (Linum usitatissimum). Flax is considered as the first fibre and oil crop cultivated during the Neolithic period in south-western Asia and is often mentioned in the context of the early ‘founder crops’.1 Flax was the sole material used for manufacturing textiles in the southern Levant until the Middle Bronze Age, starting c. 2000 BC.2 The earliest woollen textiles in this region were found at Jericho dating to the Middle Bronze Age II and coincide with the introduction of the warp-weighted loom in this area.3 The domestication of flax was an essential prerequisite for the production of textiles. Experimental fibre extraction of wild flax in Israel demonstrated that these plants have surfaces that are too heavily textured to allow spinning thread suitable for textiles.4 The quality of the flax fibre improved through time, as indicated by the fine quality of textiles uncovered in Chalcolithic contexts.

The earliest linen threads in the southern Levant may have been identified on a 10,020-year-old comb from Murabba’at caves (Fig.  4.1), near the Dead Sea, made of myrtle sticks tied together with linen threads and coated with a thin layer of asphalt on both sides of the comb. It measures 10.3 cm in length, 3.0 cm in width at the base and 4.4 cm wide at the teeth.5 A new analysis by Antoinette Rast-Eicher

Figure 4.1: Murabba’at cave, 10,020 year-old comb, No. 538695 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

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questions this first determination as domesticated flax. Other methods such as FTIR will have to clarify this question. The threads are spliced and plied, twined in a Z-direction around each of the sticks in a well-packed twining structure. It shows the use of apparently domesticated flax as a textile fibre. Moreover, the mastering of some way of spinning the fibres into threads seems to have started earlier than previously thought.

Nahal Hemar Nahal Hemar is located at the southern limit of the Judaean Desert. The finds include modelled skulls, a stone mask, many lithic and bone artefacts and figurines.6 Linen yarns and fabrics from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period (7th millennium BC) were preserved only at the cave deposits of Nahal Hemar. Prof. Ofer Bar-Yosef and I are continuing the research of Tamar Schick and will publish all of the organic artefacts.7 Items made of flax fibres, which were processed and spun into yarn suitable for fabric construction, are divided into four categories: yarns, nalbinding (looping), knotted netting and twining. Almost all the linen yarns at Nahal Hemar are spliced and plied yarns, such as remains of linen threads in wooden beads from Nahal Hemar (Fig. 4.2). The same spin direction is attested at Tell Halula, situated on the right bank of the upper Euphrates valley in Syria, covering a period of 300 years, 7600–7300 BC. Among the yarns are tassels covered with a green pigment (Fig.  4.3) and a bundle of S2i linen threads with orange pigmentation in the fibres (Fig.  4.4). The pigments have not yet been identified, and we still have to investigate the structure of these bundles. The fabrics from Nahal Hemar are not woven but were made in a variety of techniques such as looping and knotted netting (Fig. 4.5). An intermediate technique – knotted looping, where the loops are secured by knots – is also represented. This terminology is used by Tamar Schick, who examined these artefacts.

Figure 4.2: Nahal Hemar, wooden beads with remains of Z2S linen threads, No. 1984-1898 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Ulrike Claßen-Büttner and others use the term nalbinding – a textile technique that creates fabrics out of loops (rather than knots). She explains in her book on nalbinding, published in 2015, that it is a textile technique usually performed with a single needle that has an eye and thread, with loops connected to form an elastic fabric. When working with a needle with an eye, only a limited length of yarn can be used, because the whole length must be pulled completely through each stitch or loop, in contrast to knitting, which works continuously with a theoretically endless thread. Nalbinding is a one-thread technique, because the thread is continuously looped through itself.8 A cap or a net-like headgear (Fig. 4.6), originally of conical shape (Fig. 4.7), was recovered at Nahal Hemar in two major parts. It was about 32 cm long, with a band 16 cm in diameter. The main part was made using a single element technique. The 4 cm wide band is a structure of one set of elements, produced by an interlinking technique. A green stone was affixed to the centre of the band. The main part of the cap is in knotted looping. Bone needles (Fig. 4.8) were probably used for nalbinding and bone tools for thread separating. Weft-twined fabrics from Nahal Hemar include over 70 fragments. Weft twining is explained as two or more wefts that are twined together in such a way that with every twist they fix one or more warp threads.9 A frame for support of some kind might have been used, as suggested by Carmen Alfaro on the basis of experimental reconstruction.10 There are few variations of weft twining at Nahal Hemar, including spaced twining such as a delicate napkin (?) (Fig. 4.9) and another one that is a nearly complete, rectangular-shaped artefact (Fig. 4.10), 17 cm long by 30 cm wide. The warps are plied S2i, 11 threads per cm. Wefts are finer S2i yarns. The weft threads were of a mixture of fine linen fibres, with diameters

Figure 4.3: Nahal Hemar, tassels covered with green pigment, No. 1984-472 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

4.  Continuity and discontinuity in Neolithic and Chalcolithic linen textile production in the southern Levant

Figure 4.4: Nahal Hemar, a bundle of Z2S linen threads, orange pigmentation in the fibres, No. 2010-9024 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

29

Figure 4.6: Nahal Hemar, a cap or net-like headgear, No. 1984415/1(photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Figure 4.7: Nahal Hemar, a cap or net-like headgear, No. 1984414/1 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority) Figure 4.5: Nahal Hemar, knotted netting No. 1984-584 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

starting at 8 microns, and coarse fibres, whose diameters reach 50 microns.11 Edges and selvedges were preserved all around. Some of the twined textiles have dense warp threads (Fig. 4.11), similar to Tell Halula.12 Another variation is close or compact twining. Not only were different techniques used at Nahal Hemar but also different shades of linen threads, sometimes because of a slightly different process used for the production of flax fibres. As Tamar Schick concluded, the Nahal Hemar cave perishable artefacts represent one of the earliest surviving assemblages of numerous organic objects. The major feature that emerges is the utilisation of vegetal resources. Many different plants were used: reeds, rushes and grasses were used to produce cordage, basketry and mats, which

Figure 4.8: Nahal Hemar, bone needle, No. 1993-2627 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

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Figure 4.9: Nahal Hemar, a fragment of a delicate napkin (?). Spaced twining, No. 1984-1238 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Figure 4.11: Nahal Hemar, twined textile with dense warp threads, No. 1984-436 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Figure 4.10: Nahal Hemar, spaced twining ‘napkin’. 17 × 30 cm, No. 1984-413 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

are beyond the scope of this paper. A unique technique not known elsewhere was used in vessel building: containers were constructed of coils of cordage coated with collagen, pre-dating the invention of pottery (Fig. 4.12). The textiles show outstanding quality in their fine workmanship and their degree of regularity and delicacy. Also evidenced is the decoration of the fabrics with accessory items such as coloured tassels, shells and beads.13 These items display skill and variety, but without using a loom, although looms were already known in Asia Minor at Çatalhöyük (7th millennium BC) and Çayönü in south-eastern Turkey.14 Also in Mesopotamia, where textiles rarely survive,15 tabby textile imprints on clay and bitumen from Jarmo (Kurdistan) dating to the 7th–5th millennia BC suggest the use of a loom.16 Although the cave yielded bone and wooden tools including needles and shuttles, we suggest off-site manufacture. No spindles or whorls were found. Probably none of the finds was made locally in the cave, which is too small for the production of anything and was probably used as a storage space for sacred objects and not as a domestic site.

Figure 4.12: Nahal Hemar, basketry, No. 1984-408 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

The techniques of looping and knotted netting do not continue in the southern Levant in the Chalcolithic period.

The Chalcolithic period The Chalcolithic period, the 4th millennium BC, in the southern Levant witnessed a boom in craft production that focused on a wide range of materials including ivory, lithics, basalt, ceramics and metal. It was a brief moment when the

4.  Continuity and discontinuity in Neolithic and Chalcolithic linen textile production in the southern Levant

31

Figure 4.13: Map, Chalcolithic period (base map based on the NASA SRTM-Data, compiled and designed by Matthias Gütte. Additional design by CoDe. New York Inc., New York © 2014 ISAW)

32

Orit Shamir

southern Levant was at the forefront of human technological and artistic development. This moment is important for innovations in metallurgy, horticulture and animal husbandry. The people of the Chalcolithic did not just play a role in human development, they marked their contribution in style.17 Do textiles follow these changes and inventions? Late Chalcolithic occurrences in the Judaean Desert in Israel were identified in 400 natural caves (Fig. 4.13), spread in the deep canyons and along the high escarpment west of the Dead Sea and the Jordan valley. It has become evident that, with the exception of a shrine, clear Late Chalcolithic presence was found only in caves. These caves have been key repositories for organic artefacts for thousands of years. The hills around Jerusalem acted as a rain shadow, forming a region with both extremely low rainfall and low relative humidity. Such inhospitable conditions meant that the area lacked extensive human occupation in all but a few periods, among them chiefly the Chalcolithic and Roman. In those rare periods, the caves were used for living, burial and refuge.

Nahal Mishmar: the Cave of the Treasure The Late Chalcolithic period is known especially through the famous ‘Cave of the Treasure’ in Nahal Mishmar.18 The cave is the only Chalcolithic burial site in the southern Levant at which exceptional quantities of wealth have been found, such as copper metallurgy and ivory working.19 Hundreds of polished copper mace heads and elaborately worked ceremonial sceptres and crowns show how this hoard serves as evidence for breakthroughs in social organisation, artistic complexity, international trade and metallurgical expertise. Chalcolithic textiles are the earliest ones found in Israel that were made on a loom. They offer exceptional insight into early textile production and serve to confirm that the textile crafts were already very advanced in 5th to 4th millennium BC production. The predominant weaves found in the Chalcolithic southern Levant are balanced tabby or warp-faced tabbies. At the Cave of the Treasure, the number of threads per cm ranges

Figure 4.14: The Cave of the Treasure, very delicate, transparent textile, 44 warp threads per cm and 30 weft threads per cm. No. 1961-1269 (photo: Clara Amit)

between 9 and 45 in the warp and 7 and 30 in the weft. One specimen (60-151-d, IAA No.1961-1269, Fig. 4.14) is very delicate, even transparent, with 44–45 warp threads per cm and 30 weft threads per cm.20

The Cave of the Warrior The Cave of the Warrior is located near Jericho. A male skeleton – the so-called ‘warrior’ – was found in a flexed position, wrapped in a linen shroud. This was a primary burial, in which the body was interred intact, shortly after death. Interestingly, this method was not the norm in the Chalcolithic period. Most interments discovered from that time were secondary burials where the bones are collected and deposited in ossuaries. In addition, it is important to note that it is a single burial, as opposed to the multiple burials in ossuaries. The height of the skeleton is approximately 168 cm, and the age at death was estimated at about 45–50 years. The ‘package’ of cloth was opened at the Conservation Laboratory of the Israel Antiquities Authority. It was a tangled mass of folded, creased cloth in a fragile condition, covered – like the other objects found in the cave – by a layer of red ochre, which may have been sprinkled onto the textile as part of the burial ritual. At first it was impossible to determine what lay within the bundle. The shroud (Fig. 4.15) is a large rectangular linen cloth, 7 m long and 2 m wide, designed and manufactured as a single sheet; it is the largest Chalcolithic textile discovered thus far. It is decorated with painted or smeared black asphalt bands and undyed fringes 18 cm in length, and secured by knots at their ends (Fig. 4.16).21 A kilt, smaller than the shroud, was found crumpled inside the latter. One edge of the kilt terminated in a fringe, beautifully formed by 54 cm long, evenly spaced tassels. The sash is a very long (1.98–2.0 m), narrow cloth (Fig. 4.17). Only the textiles from this cave show selvedge elaboration and weft fringes. The deceased was lying on a large, plaited reed mat. He was accompanied by additional objects, including a flint knife, a bow, arrows, a wooden bowl, sandals and

Figure 4.15: The Cave of the Warrior, linen shroud (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

4.  Continuity and discontinuity in Neolithic and Chalcolithic linen textile production in the southern Levant a walking stick.22 The good physical state of the skeleton, its heavily worn teeth, the V-shaped wooden bowl, the dung on one sandal, the absence of pottery and the burial in a marginal area all indicate that the deceased was a pastoral nomad.23

33

Nahal Ze’elim: the Cave of the Skulls A Chalcolithic treasure of about 12,000 white and blue steatite beads and brownish-red carnelian beads, wrapped in two separate and delicate linen textiles, was found at Nahal Ze’elim, the Cave of the Skulls (Fig. 4.18), in 1960.24 Another important discovery from Nahal Ze’elim is a small bag made of white and blue steatite beads in a geometric-diagonal pattern, strung using linen threads and leather thongs. The handles, decorated with beads, were also preserved.25 This excavation also yielded basalt spindle whorls with fragments of wooden shafts still attached and wedged in place using linen textile (Fig. 4.19).26 Sixty years after initial scientific surveys of the caves in the Judaean Desert, Dr Uri Davidovich from the Hebrew

Figure 4.18: Nahal Ze’elim, the Cave of the Skulls, treasure of steatite beads wrapped in linen textiles, No. 1953-1307 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Figure 4.16: The Cave of the Warrior, the shroud decorated with black bands – paint or smeared asphalt – and undyed warp fringes measuring 18 cm in length and secured by knots at their ends (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Figure 4.17: The Cave of the Warrior, kilt (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Figure 4.19: Nahal Ze’elim, the Cave of the Skulls, basalt spindle whorl with fragments of wooden shafts still attached and wedged in place using linen textile, No. 1990-9095 (photo: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Orit Shamir

34

University and others from the IAA headed an excavation in June 2016. Another bundle – textile and cords wrapping a cluster of beads and brown linen textile strips – was found in a natural niche at the edge of the cave’s western wing. This bundle has yet to be opened but has meanwhile been X-rayed to identify its content.

Spinning and splicing Splicing is fundamentally different from draft spinning. In draft spinning, retted (by partially rotting the stems to separate the fibres) and generally well-processed fibres are drawn out from a mass of fluffed-up fibres usually arranged on a distaff and twisted continuously using a rotating spindle. In splicing, strips of fibres are joined in individually, often after having been stripped from the plant stalk directly and without or with only minimal retting.27 The Chalcolithic textiles have spliced and plied yarns.28 Spliced threads are characteristic of early textiles until the Middle Bronze Age, 2nd millennium BC, in the southern Levant and were used for better cohesion. This changed during the Late Bronze Age, c. 1600 BC, in the southern Levant where the flax thread consisted of single S-spun yarns.29 Antoinette Rast-Eicher, who recently examined the thread from Nahal Hemar and other Chalcolithic sites, noticed that the fibres were separated and showed no large fibre bundles, as in the Swiss Neolithic material. But at Nahal Hemar she found double fibres and remains of epidermis, which may point to the use of green flax (see Fig. 4.21).

Summary and conclusions Textiles dating to the Chalcolithic period are the earliest examples of loom-woven fabrics found in Israel and provide exceptional insight into early textile production, although it was limited in non-woven techniques. As noted by Levy and Gilead, textile production during the Chalcolithic period was carried out on a large scale, as

indicated by sites with a sudden and dramatic profusion of spindle whorls such as at Teleilat Ghassul – evidence of the intensification of spinning.30 The textiles considered here probably originated from southern Levantine sites. Flax could be grown in the Jordan valley at places such as ‘En Gedi,31 Jericho or Beth She’an valley.32 These sites are suitable for flax cultivation as the plant needs plenty of water. Thousands of years later, during the Roman period but also during the Iron Age, these areas were famous for their linen products. In any case, these textiles did not originate in Egypt, as they are completely different from those from the Fayyum. Flax that was cultivated in the Near East was not grown in Egypt as a wild plant. Flax is not native to Egypt and it is possible that it was imported into Egypt from the Levant.33

Appendix by Antoinette Rast-Eicher Eight fibre samples from Wadi Muraba’at, Nahal Mishmar and Nahal Hemar were sent by Orit Shamir to this author for analysis. Seven of these samples were plant fibres (Table 4.1) and were checked first by light microscopy followed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The samples were sputtered with gold (20  nm; 360  s) and analysed using an SEM Zeiss Evo 50 with 20 KV. With light microscopy and SEM, fibres are identified following criteria such as width, form, fibre twist to an S- or Z-direction, fibre end formation, epidermis cells, stomata, epidermal hairs and crystal structure. The more criteria that can be seen, the more accurate the determination of the fibre. It is not possible, for example, to differentiate wild flax (e.g. Linum bienne) from domesticated flax (Linum usitatissimum) with simple microscopy. Generally, unretted tree bast used for threads will show bands with rays. Exact determination, however, is usually quite difficult, if there are, for instance, no crystals in the rays or other determining criteria to identify the tree source. Flax, also a bast fibre but without rays, may also be used unretted. Prehistoric flax stemming from both Europe and

Table 4.1: List of fibre samples analysed IAA No

Site

No. Rast-Eicher

Results

538695

Wadi Muraba’at

17/107

Plant fibre, in bad shape, rays, no crystals visible (empty rays)

491650

Wadi Muraba’at

16/169

Regular yarns, S-cuticula, separated fibres, partly polygonal fibres; flax

84-413

Nahal Hemar

16/168

In both directions: Polygonal fibres, S-cuticula, remains of epidermis with stomata, parallel nodes, fibres separated, pointed fibre ends, crossed nodes; flax

84-586/1

Nahal Hemar

16/167

Polygonal fibres, fibres separated, S-cuticula, crossed nodes; flax

84-496

Nahal Hemar

17/104

Plant fibre, very badly preserved, plant cells visible, rays? Tree bast?

896775

Nahal Hemar

17/106

Covered with conservation product; probably animal fibre, indeterminable

61-1268

Nahal Mishmar

16/170

Plied yarn; one of the yarns with strong z-twist, the other loose with parallel nodes; dirt, surface not clearly visible; bast fibre

84-441

Nahal Hemar

17/105

human hair

4.  Continuity and discontinuity in Neolithic and Chalcolithic linen textile production in the southern Levant the Near East appears to have been spliced over a long period of time. Fine bands of fibres may also have been added to threads by being spun together. Such a method had also been employed, in fact, with tree bast long before flax was used.34 A textile composed of spliced flax and having fibres that form into a band will loosen over time with use. But, unlike combed flax, the nodes remain parallel. Two fibre samples that exemplify this are one from the large twined textile found in Nahal Hemar (no. 84-413) and one from Wadi Muraba’at (no. 538695, which is the thread binding the teeth of a comb).

35

(Fig. 4.20). Flax has no rays. In this sample, unfortunately, the rays are empty and no crystals are visible, which means the tree bast cannot be determined exactly. It can be conjectured, however, that this thread was made from tree bast and very probably in the splicing technique.

Nahal Hemar (no. 84-413)

This thread has been made with two fine bands of a bast fibre using the splicing technique. The SEM picture clearly shows the identifying large ‘band’ of a plant fibre with rays

The Nahal Hemar thread (no. 84-413), from a large rectangular textile made in the twining technique (Schick 1988, pl. XX.1), is especially interesting. This is because the fibres are still partially sticking to each other, with remains of the epidermis showing stomata typical of flax (Fig.  4.21). Furthermore, pointed fibre ends are visible. The nodes are partly parallel (Fig. 4.22), so that, together with the epidermis, we can assume the use of green flax – in other words, thread produced from the green stalks that does not entail

Figure 4.20: Wadi Muraba’at, fibres of the thread binding the comb, tree bast, No. 538695 (photo: Antoinette Rast-Eicher)

Figure 4.21: Nahal Hemar, flax fibres with parallel nodes, No. 84-413 (photo: Antoinette Rast-Eicher)

Figure 4.22: Nahal Hemar, remains of epidermis with stomata, No. 84-413 (photo: Antoinette Rast-Eicher)

Figure 4.23: Nahal Hemar, human hair, No. 84-441 (photo: Antoinette Rast-Eicher)

Wadi Muraba’at (no. 538695)

36

Orit Shamir

drying or retting. Threads with epidermis have been found in Swiss Neolithic textiles.35 This technique confirms that when this flax was processed it was with the same method as with tree bast.

Nahal Hemar (no. 84-441) One sample (Nahal Hemar no. 84-441 is human hair. The hairs are oval with fine rippled scales and without or with narrow medulla (Fig. 4.23).

Notes Weiss and Zohary 2011, 249; Zohary et al. 2012, 1–2. Shamir 2014; 2015. Crowfoot 1960, 521; Shamir, pers. obs., University College London; Shamir 1996. 4 Abbo et al. 2014. 5 Schick 1995; Shimony 1995. 6 Bar-Yosef and Alon 1988. 7 Schick 1988; Shimony and Jucha 1988. 8 Claßen-Büttner 2015, 9–12. 9 Seiler-Baldinger 1994, 31. 10 Alfaro Giner 2012. 11 Shimony and Jucha 1988. 12 Alfaro Giner 2012. 13 Schick 1988. 14 McCorriston 1997, 519. 15 Breniquet 2010, 52. 16 Adovasio 1977. 17 Sebbane et al. 2014. 18 Bar-Adon 1980. 19 Joffe 2003, 57. 20 Bar-Adon 1980, 173. 21 Koren 1998. 22 Schick 1998. 23 Ashkenazi and Goren 2010. 24 Aharoni 1961; Bar-Yosef Mayer and Porat 2010. 25 Shamir 2014, 145, figs 7–13. 26 Ben-Yosef et al. 2017. 27 Gleba and Harris 2017. 28 Shamir 2014, 145, figs 7–16. 29 Shamir 2014; 2015. 30 Levy and Gilead 2013. 31 Bar-Adon 1980, 185. 32 Schick 2002, 238. 33 Vogelsang-Eastwood 2000, 269. 34 Leuzinger and Rast-Eicher 2011. 35 Rast-Eicher 2016, fig. 350. 1 2 3

References Abbo, S., Zezak, I., Lev-Yadun, S., Shamir, O., Fridman, T. and Gopher, A. (2014) Harvesting wild flax in the Galilee, Israel and extracting fibers – bearing on Near Eastern plant domestication. Israel Journal of Plant Sciences 62, 52–64. Adovasio, J.M. (1977) The textile and basketry impressions from Jarmo. Paléorient 3, 223–230.

Aharoni, Y. (1961) Expedition B. Israel Exploration Journal 11, 11–24. Alfaro Giner, C. (2012) Textiles from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Tell Halula. Paléorient 38, 41–54. Ashkenazi, H. and Goren, Y. (2010) The archaeology of the individual: reconstructing the life of the deceased from the ‘Cave of the Warrior’. In P. Matthiae, F. Pinnock, L. Nigro and N. Marchetti (eds) Proceedings of the 6th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 1, 177–188. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz. Bar-Adon, P. (1980) The Cave of the Treasure: The Finds from the Caves in Nahal Mishmar. Jerusalem, Israel Exploration Society. Bar-Yosef Mayer, D. and Porat, N. (2010) Glazed steatite paste beads in the Chalcolithic of the Levant: long distance trade and manufacturing processes. In S.A. Rosen and V. Roux (eds) Techniques and People: Anthropological Perspectives on Technology in the Archaeology of the Proto-Historic and Early Historic Periods in the Southern Levant, 111–123. Jerusalem, Centre de Recherche Français de Jérusalem – De Boccard Publishers. Bar-Yosef, O. and Alon, D. (eds) (1988) Nahal Hemar Cave: The Excavations. Jerusalem, Dept of Antiquities & Museums in the Ministry of Education & Culture, and the Israel Exploration Society. Ben-Yosef, E., Shamir, O. and Levy, J. (2017) On early metallurgy and textile-production technologies in the southern Levant: a response to Langgut et al. Antiquity 91, 765–776. Breniquet, C. (2010) Weaving in Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age: archaeology, techniques, iconography. In C. Michel and M.-L. Nosch (eds) Textile Terminologies in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean from the Third to the First Millennia BC, 52–67. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Claßen-Büttner, U. (2015) Nalbinding, What in the World is That?: History and Technique of an Almost Forgotten Handicraft. Norderstedt, Books on Demand. Crowfoot, E. (1960) Textiles, matting and basketry. In K. Kenyon (ed.) Excavations at Jericho I: The Tombs Excavated in 1952–4, 519–526. London, British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem. Gleba M. and Harris S. (2019) The first plant bast fibre technology: identifying splicing in archaeological textiles. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 11, 2329–2346. Joffe, A.H. (2003) Slouching toward Beersheva: Chalcolithic mortuary practices. In B. Alpert-Nakhai (ed.) Local and Regional Context in the Near East in the Southwest: Essays in Honor of William G. Dever, 45–67. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Koren, Z.C. (1998) Color analysis of the textiles. In T. Schick (ed.) The Cave of the Warrior: A Fourth Millennium Burial in the Judean Desert, 100–106. Jerusalem, Israel Antiquities Authority. Leuzinger, U. and Rast-Eicher, A. (2011) Flax processing in the Neolithic and Bronze Age pile-dwelling settlements of eastern Switzerland. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 334, 535–542. Levy, J. and Gilead, I. (2013) Spinning in the 5th millennium in the southern Levant: aspects of the textile economy. Paléorient 38, 129–141. McCorriston, J. (1997) The fiber revolution: textile extensification, alienation, and social stratification in Ancient Mesopotamia. Current Anthropology 38, 517–549.

4.  Continuity and discontinuity in Neolithic and Chalcolithic linen textile production in the southern Levant Rast-Eicher, A. (2016) Textilien. In C. Harb, N. Bleicher and J. Affolter (eds) Zürich-Parkhaus Opéra: Eine neolithische Feuchtbodenfundstelle, 188–196. Zürich, Baudirektion Kanton Zürich. Schick, T. (ed.) (1998) The Cave of the Warrior: A Fourth Millennium Burial in the Judean Desert. Jerusalem, Israel Antiquities Authority. Schick, T. (1988) Nahal Hemar cave – cordage, basketry and fabrics. In O, Bar-Yosef and D. Alon (eds) Nahal Hemar Cave: The Excavations, 31–42. Jerusalem, Dept of Antiquities & Museums in the Ministry of Education & Culture, and the Israel Exploration Society. Schick, T. (1995) A 10,000 year old comb from Wadi Murrabba’at in the Judean Desert. Atiqot 27, 199–202. Schick, T. (2002) The early basketry and textiles from caves in the northern Judean Desert. Atiqot 41, 223–239. Sebbane, M., Misch-Brandel, O. and Master, D.M. (eds) (2014) Masters of Fire: Copper Age Art from Israel. Catalogue of the exhibition. New York, Princeton University Press. Seiler-Baldinger, A. (1994) Textiles: A Classification of Techniques. Washington, Smithsonian Institution Press. Shamir, O. (1996) Loomweights and whorls. In D.T. Ariel (ed.) Excavations at the City of David 1978–85, Directed

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by Y. Shiloh, 135–170. Jerusalem, Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology. Shamir, O. (2014) Textiles, basketry and other organic artifacts of the Chalcolithic period in the southern Levant. In M. Sebbane, O. Misch-Brandel and D.M. Master (eds) Masters of Fire: Copper Age Art from Israel, 135–170. New York, Princeton University Press. Shamir, O. (2015) Textiles from the Chalcolithic period, Early and Middle Bronze Age in the southern Levant: the continuation of splicing. Archaeological Textiles Review 57, 12–25. Shimony, C. (1995) Fiber identification. Atiqot 27, 204. Shimony, C. and Jucha, R. (1988) The fibers and yarn measurements. Atiqot 18, 42. Vogelsang-Eastwood, G. (2000) Textiles. In P.T. Nicholson and I. Shaw (eds) Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, 268–298. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Weiss, E. and Zohary, D. (2011) The Neolithic southwest Asian founder crops: their biology and archaeobotany. Current Anthropology 52, 237–254. Zohary, D., Hopf, M. and Weiss, E. (2012) Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The Origin and Spread of Domesticated Plants in Southwest Asia, Europe, and the Mediterranean Basin. Oxford, Oxford University Press.

5 Fibres, fabrics and looms: a link between animal fibres and warp-weighted looms in the Iron Age Levant Thaddeus Nelson

In the Levant, an increase in the number of loom weights recovered in Iron Age II (c. 1000–500 BC) contexts in comparison to older contexts suggests new methods of textile production. However, poor preservation of textiles has constrained scholars’ ability to determine the full extent of these changes. This paper described improved methods of analysing loom weights that reconstruct the variation in fabrics they were used to weave. This approach is used to analyse loom weights from 12 sites, and the reconstructions are compared to contemporary textile remains and impressions. The results demonstrate that Levantine warp-weighted looms were best suited for weaving animal fibre (i.e. wool and goat hair) textiles rather than bast fibre (i.e. linen and hemp) fabrics. Keywords: loom weights, warp-weighted looms, Levant, Iron Age, weaving, wool, flax

Introduction The Levantine Iron Age II (c. 1000–538 BC) was a period of political and economic centralisation. The rulers of newly formed states constructed their power by creating and consolidating wealth. These rulers took control of domestic labour and commoditised existing Levantine products. The commodities had to be shelf-stable, quantifiable and transportable, in order to be stored, exchanged and taxed.1 Several authors conclude that textiles are an example of one such commodity that became a royal industry.2 In order to explore the competition of fibres in the Iron Age II Levant, I analysed tools associated with the commoditisation of textiles to determine whether animal fibres (e.g. wool and goat hair) or plant fibre (e.g. flax and hemp) were the basis of royal wealth.

Commoditisation of Levantine goods Royal wealth in the Iron Age II came from the transformation of locally available raw materials into finished goods that could be traded on routes connecting Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, Egypt and Arabia through the Levant.3 Olive oil and wine are the two best-known commodities from the Iron Age II Levant, because of the evidence for large-scale production and

transportation.4 In order to commoditise olive oil and wine, political elites constructed large centralised press buildings.5 These presses replaced earlier domestic structures controlled by lineages.6 In addition to a change in scale, the new buildings incorporated beam presses that increased the efficiency of oil and wine production.7 Thus, the Iron Age II political elites’ strategy of commodification can be summed up as centralisation of labour and increased production through new technologies. Several authors have suggested that Iron Age II political elites used similar strategies to commoditise textiles as they did to transform olive oil and wine industries.8 Loom weights, components of warp-weighted looms, are the primary archaeological evidence of change in textile production. Hundreds of these weights have been found inside the Iron Age II wine and olive oil press buildings.9 This suggests that royal weavers worked in the same structures that were used to make other important commodities.

The warp-weighted loom in the Levant In order to describe the archaeological evidence for warpweighted looms in the Iron Age II Levant, it is first necessary to describe how weavers used the thousands of weights

Thaddeus Nelson

40

recovered in excavations. The warp-weighted loom serves a dual purpose common to all looms. First, it organises the warp-threads (i.e. a set of parallel, equally spaced threads that are set up before weaving starts). This permits the weaver to add the weft thread (i.e. a second set of threads woven between the warp threads), which locks the two sets of threads together. The warp-weighted loom’s second function is to create tension on the warp threads. Warp threads under the appropriate tension remain parallel in the finished fabric and are easier for weavers to manipulate.10 The warp-weighted loom is a unique style of loom, because it functions by suspending a set of weights from the warp threads. Each weight is suspended from multiple warp threads. Martensson and colleagues used experimental reconstructions of warp-weighted looms to demonstrate how these weights organise warp threads and create tension.11 The warp threads attached to each loom weight are spaced equally along the width of the weight. Weavers use this to maintain a desired warp arrangement by attaching a calculated number of warp threads to each weight and then suspending the weights side by side. In order to ensure the weights create the desired tension, a weaver selects weights of an appropriate mass. Loom weights from Early Bronze Age contexts (c. 3300–3200 BC) are the first evidence of warp-weighted looms in the Levant.12 Only a small number of sites from the Early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, and Early Iron Age contain loom weights (Table 5.1).13 A dramatic change occurs in the Iron Age II period. Loom weights are a nearly ubiquitous component of Levantine material culture found in almost every site from this period.14 In addition, several authors argue that there are more weights in sites from this period than in sites from earlier periods.15

The larger number of sites with loom weights and larger number of weights in these sites suggests that there were more warp-weighted looms in use during the Iron Age II than in earlier periods. Multiple authors argue that Iron Age II loom weights are generally heavier than weights from earlier periods.16 If this observation is accurate, it suggests that Iron Age II weavers adapted their tools to weave a new style of fabric that required heavier loom weights. As yet, no consensus exists on what style of fabric this was. Authors have suggested coarse wool fabric,17 fine linen and hemp18 or specialised tribute fabrics that mixed wool and flax.19 Describing the fabric made with Iron Age II loom weights may have the potential to clarify the relationship between fibre choice (e.g. bast or animal fibre) and the commoditisation of textiles.

From loom weights to fabric The combined evidence of an increase in loom weight frequency and loom weight mass suggests that weaving in the Iron Age II was different from weaving in earlier periods. The experimental weaving Andersson Strand and colleagues conducted provides new means to analyse Iron Age II loom weights in order to explore the nature of Iron Age II weaving.20 Their experiments identified constraints on the number of warp threads that can be attached to a loom weight and the number of warp threads per centimetre of fabric when weaving with a warp-weighted loom. The first constraint is that weavers should attach between five and 30 warp threads to each loom weight. This constraint ensures that weaving is efficient and that warp threads remain organised.21 The second constraint is that the warp count (i.e. the number of parallel warp threads measured across 1 cm of fabric) should be between five and

Table 5.1: Levantine sites at which loom weights have been recovered Period

Dates BC

Sites with loom weights

Early Bronze Age

3300–2000

Tell Halif, Tell Ta’annek and Tell Abu al-Kharaz (3 sites)

Middle Bronze Age

2000–1550

Tell el-Ajjul, Bethel, Tell Beit Mirsim, Beth-Shean, Gibeon, Gezer, Jericho, Kabri, Megiddo, Tel Megadim, Tel Mevorakh, Tel Qashish, Sheckem, Tel Ta’annak, H. Nahal Te’enim and Tel Yoqne’am (16 sites)

Late Bronze Age

1550–1200

Tell Abu Hawam, Gezer, Hazor, Megiddo and Tell Ta’annek (5 sites)

Iron Age I

1200–1000

Ashdod, Ashkelon, Tel Miqne, Megiddo, Tell Qasile, Beth-Shean, Qubur al Walayidah, Tabara el Akra and Tell Afis (9 sites)

Iron Age II

1000–539

Tell Abu Hawam, Afeq, Tel Amal, Ashdod, Tel Batash/Timnah, Tel Beer Sheba, Tell Beit Mirsim, Bethel, Beth-Shean, Deir ‘Alla, Erani, En Gedi, Tel En Gev, Tel Gamma, Gezer, Gibeon, H. Hadash, Tell Halif, Tell el-Hammah, Tel Haror, Hazor, Tell el-Hesi, Tell Ira, Tell Judeideh, Kadesh Barnea, Tell Keisan, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, Lachish, Tel Maresha, Tel Miqne-Ekron, Motza, Tell en-Nasbeh, Pella, Tell Qasile, H. Rosh Zayit, Tell es-Safi/Gath, Tell es-Sa’idiyeh, Samaria, Tel Sera’, Shiqmona, Tel Ta’annek, H. Uzza, Vered Jericho, Tell Yin’am, Tell Zakariya, Tell Afis, Tell Mastuma, Hama, Tell Masin, Tell Nebi Mend, Tabara el Akrad, Tell Ahmar, Malatya, Tall Jawa, Ein Dara, Khirbat al-Mudayna, Tell Mazar, Tell Mardiq/Ebla, Khorvat Shimon, Khirbet Summeily and Tell el-Oreme (61 sites)

5.  Fibres, fabrics and looms: a link between animal fibres and warp-weighted looms in the Iron Age Levant

41

Table 5.2: Example table using the approach of Martensson et al. to analyze a loom weight from Ashkelon A

B

C

D

10 g warp tension

20 g warp tension

30 g warp tension

40 g warp tension

No. threads per loom weight

32

16

11

8

No.threads per two loom weights

64

32

22

16

Warp threads/cm

9

4

3

2

Possible, too many threads per weight

Possible, too few threads/cm

Unlikely, too few threads/cm

Unlikely, too few threads/cm

  Warp threads requiring

Evaluation of stability

Ashkelon loom weight 44452: mass 328 g, thickness 6.9 cm (Master 2011)

30 warp threads per centimetre. In some cases, very thick or very thin warp threads may require a decrease or increase in these constraints respectively.22 Martensson and colleagues describe a method to calculate important characteristics of the fabric that a loom weight could be used to weave within their observed constraints. The authors provide a set of equations to calculate the warp count (i.e. the number of warp threads in 1 centimetre of fabric) and the tension for each warp arrangement.23 They use these equations to calculate the warp arrangements for select tensions (Table 5.2). They then evaluate the possibility of weaving each warp arrangement using the constraints on warp arrangements described in their experimental weaving. This method has the potential to overlook important tensions, if they are not selected to test. It is also time-consuming, because it requires a separate table for each loom weight to be analysed. In order to overcome the limitations of Martensson and colleagues’ method, I constructed two inequalities that can be applied to large numbers of weights in a database. The first set of inequalities identifies the tensions of warp arrangements with the highest and lowest warp threads per centimetre possible (Inequality 1). The second set of inequalities identifies the tensions of warp arrangements with the highest and lowest number of warp threads per loom weight (Inequality 2). The two tensions that make all four inequalities true indicate the highest and lowest tensions possible. In this way, application of these inequalities identifies the exact optimal tensions, rather than arbitrary values selected by the investigator. I derived an equality in order to calculate the number of warp threads per centimetre for both of the identified tensions (Equation  1). These formulas can be used in a spreadsheet to efficiently reconstruct the warp arrangements for large numbers of loom weights. Inequality 1: Inequality derived from constraints of warp threads per centimetre (mass is loom weight’s mass and thickness is loom weight’s thickness). 2*Mass 2*Mass ≥ tension ≥ Thickness*5 Thickness*10, 20, 30 

Inequality 2: Inequality derived from constraints of warp threads per loom weight (mass is loom weight’s mass).

Mass Mass ≥ tension ≥ 30 5 Equation 1: Equality to calculate the number of threads per centimetre at a given tension (mass is loom weight’s mass and thickness is loom weight’s thickness).

Warp Threads per CM =

2* Mass Tension*Thickness

Sample of Iron Age II loom weights Loom weights are a nearly ubiquitous component of Iron Age II material culture. In order to reconstruct the fabric woven Table 5.3: Sample size from each site analyzed in this study  

Loom weights

Measured loom weights

Kadesh Barnea

13

11

Kuntillet ‘Ajrud

19

19

City of David Excavation

142

52

Beth-Shean

231

219

Ashkelon

63

47

Tel es-Safi

130

82

Tel Amal

171

145

Tel Batash

298

101

Tell Ta’annek

88

58

Khirbats al-Mudayna

278

138

Tell Mazar

202

184

Tell Afis

230

114

Total

1865

1170

42

Thaddeus Nelson

with using these tools, I collected measurements from publications and museum collections (Table 5.3). Measurements from Tell Afis, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, Kadesh Barnea, the City of David excavation, Tell Beth-Shean, Ashkelon, Tell Ta’annek, Tel Amal, Tell es-Safi and Tell Batash are published for individual weights. In addition, I measured 108 loom weights from the 1921 excavation at Tell Beth-Shean. Finally, Boertien published weights from Khirbat al-Mudayna, Tell Mazar and Deir ‘Alla as averages for weights found in selected contexts.24 The sample contains 1865 loom weights, of which 1170 are measured and weighed.25 The weights include examples of different shapes (e.g. cylindrical unpierced, pierced donuts, pyramidal and spherical) and different materials (e.g. sundried clay, baked clay, basalt and gypsum) commonly found in Iron Age II contexts.

Reconstructed warp arrangements In order to reconstruct the warp arrangements that Iron Age II weavers worked with, I entered the widths and masses of the 1170 loom weights into a spreadsheet. I used formulas for each of the inequalities described above in order to calculate the optimal tensions for each loom weight. Finally, I used these tensions and Equation 1 to calculate the warp counts for the highest and lowest tensions identified from the inequalities. The warp arrangements calculated with this method are similar for individually measured loom weights and loom weights recorded as averages. Figure 5.1 shows the warp arrangements for individual and grouped weights. The black line indicates the lowest thread count for each loom weight. A minimum of 5 warp threads per centimetre results from Martensson and colleagues’ observations. The individual points on Figure 5.1 mark the warp arrangements, with the highest warp counts calculated for each loom weight or group of loom weights. Most Iron Age II loom weights can provide low tensions on warp threads (Tables 5.4 and 5.5). Low tensions such as these would be sufficient to weave medium or fine warp threads (Table 5.6).26 The warp thread counts for that result from

Equation 1 shows that these weights were suited for weaving fabrics with warp counts below 15 threads per centimetre (Table 5.7). Thus, the characteristic weft arrangements of the fabrics Iron Age II weavers made on warp-weighted looms contained relatively fine warp threads spaced widely apart. Table 5.4: Cumulative percentiles of individual loom weights suited for weaving arrangements with different tensions Tension (g)

Tension with highest warp thread count

Tension with lowest warp thread count