Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

While the importance of textiles and the techniques of precolumbian textile production have been well-documented in regions such as the Andes, far less research has been conducted in other parts of the Americas, including North America, Mesoamerica, the Intermediate Region, and the Caribbean. With only a few exceptions—such as the U.S. Southwest—the climates of these regions are generally not conducive to preservation, meaning that textiles themselves are only rarely preserved. Additional sources of relatively untapped evidence on textile production exist, however, in other archaeologically recovered material culture such as implements used for creating textiles (including, but not limited to, spindle whorls, net gauges, needles, and weaving awls); objects associated with textiles (e.g., fishing net weights and floats); and even raw materials (e.g., cultivated or collected fibers and pigments). Analysis of these artifacts carries great potential for insights regarding the techniques and technologies used for producing textiles across both time and space, and into the lives of those who made and used the finished products. Of additional interest to the session are studies documenting the distribution of artifacts employed for these purposes and what this tells us about the practical and symbolic uses of textiles in these societies.

Other Keywords
Textile Analysis • Craft Production • Material Culture and Technology • Lithic Analysis • Textiles • Experimental Archaeology • Paleoethnobotany • Hohokam • Archaic • Woodland

Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) • United Mexican States (Country) • Yucatan (State / Territory) • Corozal (State / Territory) • Quintana Roo (State / Territory) • Campeche (State / Territory) • Puebla (State / Territory) • United States of America (Country) • Tlaxcala (State / Territory) • Veracruz (State / Territory)

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-11 of 11)

  • Documents (11)
Documents
  • Bark Beaters and Cloth Production in the Classic Maya Area (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Traci Ardren.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While bark cloth and paper are well known in the ethnographic and artistic records of Pacific and African cultures, due to preservation concerns these important plant based products have been challenging to investigate in the precolumbian cultures of the New World. Often our only proxy for bark...

  • Fabrics of the South American Desert Coast: The Study of the Marine Hunter-Gatherer's Plant Fiber Technology in the Atacama Desert (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Camila Alday.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research aims to study the earliest fabric artifacts made by marine hunter-gatherers who inhabited the Peru-Chile desert coast. Thanks to the aridity of this area, I use a remarkable amount of well-preserved plant-fiber materials, most belonging to the world’s oldest Chinchorro mummies buried...

  • Following the Fiber: Agave Tools from Cropping to Crafting (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Fish. Suzanne Fish.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Hohokam farmers of southern Arizona grew agave for food, fiber, and probable alcoholic beverages in distinctive and widely preserved fields on dry slopes that were dedicated to this major succulent crop. Specialized tools from Hohokam agricultural and residential contexts allow us to track agave...

  • A Little Bird Told Me: Use-Wear Analysis and Replication Studies as a Means to Identify the Function of Birdstones (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Teel. Leslie Dunaway. Billie Follensbee.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Among the most enigmatic ancient North American artifacts are the objects collectively known as birdstones: Small ground stone objects, usually made of banded slate, that take the generalized form of a simplified bird or a bird’s head, sometimes with protruding "popeyes." The vast majority of...

  • A New Gauge: More on Formative Period Textiles and Technologies (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Billie Follensbee.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. While considerable research has been conducted on the importance of textiles in Classic and Postclassic Mesoamerica, little study has been done on textiles among Early or Middle Formative period cultures, mainly due to scanty preservation. As noted in previous research, however, depictions of...

  • Shells, Drills, and Lithic Tools: Indirect Evidence of Textile Production at a Mississippian Frontier (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Maureen Meyers.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Textiles served as symbols of status and ideological belief systems in Southeastern Mississippian chiefdoms. They also were markers of identity. Remains of fabric are not often found in the Southeast, due to poor preservation in the region. Those that have been analyzed reveal that a range of colors...

  • Social and Geographic Associations of Cotton-sized Spindle Whorls in South-central Veracruz, Mexico (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Barbara Stark.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The western lower Papaloapan basin in south-central Veracruz was subject to systematic survey and surface collection in several blocks of terrain. An initial analysis of spindle whorls from one survey block showed cotton-sized whorls were relatively abundant during the Classic and Postclassic...

  • Textile Tools and Technologies from the Postclassic Huasteca: Artistic and Archaeological Evidence (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only María Eugenia Maldonado Vite. Kim Richter.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Postclassic period, the Huasteca region along the northeastern Gulf Coast was an important producer of textiles made of zapupe (the local name for ixtle, that is, agave or yucca plant fibers) and especially cotton as evidenced in early colonial manuscripts, such as the Codex Mendoza and...

  • To Spin and Whorl: Functional and Symbolic Associations of Chancay Weaving Tools (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Splitstoser. Gabrielle Vail.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological sources suggest that textiles from Chancay culture (ca. 1000-1470), occupying the central coastal region of Peru, were produced in large quantities. While they are ubiquitous in collections all over the world, they remain to be systematically studied, as do the tools that were used to...

  • Tools Present and Tools Absent in Textile-intensive Mortuary Contexts: the Paracas Case (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ann Peters.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In most of the world ancient fabrics are not preserved, though much can be learned about garment systems, surface design and production techniques through tools, accessories and contemporary imagery. The Andean desert coast and mortuary traditions provide extraordinary conditions for textile...

  • Weaving and Spinning Technologies from the Northern Southwest: Recent Research by the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project (2019)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Erin Gearty. Laurie Webster. Chuck LaRue. Louie Garcia.

    This is an abstract from the "Textile Tools and Technologies as Evidence for the Fiber Arts in Precolumbian Societies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Perishable materials that provide information about precontact weaving traditions rarely preserve in the archaeological record. One region where they have survived is the Four Corners region of the North American Southwest, where the arid environment and intensive use of dry caves allow for the...