Invisible Women in a World of Men: The Textile Trade in the North Atlantic, AD 1000–1600

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Waterlogged or deeply buried deposits from medieval harbors in certain northern European towns have produced large and well-preserved textile assemblages that contain a surprising number of non-indigenous textiles. Some of these appear to have originated in the North Atlantic Islands (Iceland, the Faroes, the Hebrides, Shetland, and perhaps Greenland), while others may have been moving from continental Europe to those islands. How did these textiles get there? How were they traded? And how did textiles often labeled as “Wadmol” in medieval documents and known as vaðmál in the North Atlantic islands fit within, and flow through, international trade markets linking the North Atlantic with Northern Europe? With the help of strontium isotope analyses conducted through Brown University’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences to source the textiles, we have been exploring the roles of women in North Atlantic societies and their involvement in both international textile trade networks and production to meet their own local needs on their farms in the distant islands of the North Atlantic.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Social Archaeology in the North and North Atlantic (SANNA 3.0): Investigating the Social Lives of Northern Things   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32655