The Research Seminar Series in Archaeology and Environmental archaeology invites you to a seminar with Anne Marie Decker, independent researcher, who will speak on the topic of "Archaeological Nalbinding: recognizing & differentiating looped textiles".
Abstract
Nalbound fabrics are an often misidentified type of non-woven looped textile, particularly in archaeological contexts. This is due to a lack of understanding of both the wide variety of structures/textures that can be produced by the technique and an insufficient understanding of the worldwide corpus. This presentation will take a look at some of the significant variety of nalbinding found in archaeological contexts in Scandinavia. It will also touch on surface texture confusions with other techniques and common issues with documentation.
Looped textiles require a different protocol than woven textiles. The weave structure of cloth is often studied entirely separately from its subsequent construction into clothing. That division is not effective for looped textiles as the construction of the final artifact is an inherent part of the construction of the fabric itself. Understanding the effects of the construction details can be particularly useful when attempting to determine which technique produced the structure of an archaeological artifact as there are some structures that can be produced by more than one technique.
Too often the only information recorded for nalbound artifacts are type of object, location found, approximate dating, rough size, possibly material type, and that it is nalbound or some looped technique. In the vast majority of cases there is no indication as to which stitch or stitch family or even if it was a simple or compound variant noted. Other additional details that are useful for future researchers are at what gauge it was worked (a basic stitch/row count), yarn structure (single/plied, S/Z), and any construction details noted. Without these details, no comparisons can be made and any understanding of the artifact’s place in the broader corpus is limited. Thus this presentation will also provide you with a walk through of a basic examination protocol that will record pertinent details.
The Research Seminar Series in Archaeology and Environmental Archaeology presents and discusses current research in archaeology and environmental archaeology. See more upcoming seminars in the series
