Weaving Ancestors into Everyday Objects: Basketmaker II Use of Human Hair

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Cordage, Yarn, and Associated Paraphernalia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Pre-pottery farmers on the Colorado Plateau of the North American Southwest known as Basketmakers fabricated various artifacts using human hair cordage. The textiles made of this material ranged from intimate personal adornments to utilitarian rabbit nets and load-bearing tumplines. Aside from important functional properties of elasticity and strength, hair has symbolic and sentimental connotations when it comes from departed family members. Human hair is not simply a handy functional alternative to making cordage with plant fibers. We report non-contemporaneous radiocarbon dates on cordage from three textiles that are consistent with weaving using intergenerational or heirloom hair. The dated cords have construction differences indicative of separate hands in spinning and plying. Human hair collected mainly from females likely had significant social ramifications related to memory of ancestors and enlisting their help in life.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Cordage, Yarn, and Associated Paraphernalia   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35635.0