Description
The research project “Textile Revolution” integrates studies on the introduction and spread of the woolly sheep and wool usage from different scientific fields. Wool production is closely connected to the domesticated sheep and specifically to those animals that carry a woolly coat. With the keeping of woolly sheep, not only did the economy of prehistoric communities change, but also the textile technology, meaning both, the tools and the techniques for thread and textile making.
The origin of woolly sheep and the paths and speed of their dispersal throughout the Old World are still open questions and form one of the major topics in this research project. The use of wool provided the basis for new and rapidly growing textile production which, without exaggeration, had numerous economic and social consequences. Therefore, the multidisciplinary research group investigated archaeological, archaeozoological and geo-archaeological types of evidence from material culture between 6500 - 1500 BC in the Near East and Europe attributing the innovation to the spread of sheep husbandry and wool processing.
Past herd structures of domesticates are investigated on the basis of bone finds, textile tools provide information on textile production technology and herding-related vegetation disturbances are investigated using pollen -, charcoal - and geochemicaldata. The objectives of the research project were:
- To form a more precise notion of the innovation of wool production and processing by determining when and where it first emerged, and how it spread.
- To form a more precise view of the introduction of wool-bearing sheep through indirect, archaeozoological methods (metrics, herd demographics).
- To quantitatively determine (model) regional environmental changes related to grazing pressure and to interpret them in the context of increasing sheep herding.
- To comparatively investigate textile tool assemblages and document technological changes.
The data collection comprises sets of bone data, environmental data and textile tools.
Further information
Project Publications
Becker, Cornelia / Benecke, Norbert / Grabundžija, Ana / Küchelmann, Hans Christian / Pollock, Susan / Schier, Wolfram / Schoch, Chiara / Schumacher, Martin (2015): Domestic Sheep – Wool Production – Landscape Changes, poster presented at the Evaluation of the Topoi-Project 15. 1. 2015, Berlin
Becker, Cornelia / Benecke, Norbert / Grabundžija, Ana / Küchelmann, Hans Christian / Pollock, Susan / Schier, Wolfram / Schoch, Chiara / Schrakamp, Ingo / Schütt, Brigitta / Schumacher, Martin (2016): The Textile Revolution. Research into the Origin and Spread of Wool Production between the Near East and Central Europe. – eTopoi Journal for Ancient Studies Special Volume 6, 102-145
Becker, Cornelia / Benecke, Norbert / Küchelmann, Hans Christian / Suhrbier, Stefan (in press since May 2018, scheduled for 2220): Finding the woolly sheep: meta-analyses of archaeozoological data from Southwest-Asia and Southeast-Europe. in: Schier, Wolfram & Pollock, Susan (eds.): Proceedings of the Topoi-Workshop „The Competition of Fibres“ March 2017
Becker, Cornelia / Benecke, Norbert / Grabundžija, Ana / Küchelmann, Hans Christian / Pollock, Susan / Schier, Wolfram / Schoch, Chiara / Schrakamp, Ingo / Schütt, Brigitta / Schumacher, Martin (manuscript finished July 2014; publication date uncertain): The textile revolution. Research into the origin and spread of wool production between the Near East and Central Europe, in:Topoi Research Group Reports, Berlin
Djurdjevac Conrad, Natasa / Furstenau, Daniel / Grabundžija, Ana / Helfmann, Luzie / Park, Martin / Schier, Wolfram / Schützt, Brigitta / Schütte, Christof / Weber, Marcus / Wulkow, Niklas / Zonker, Johannes (2018): Mathematical Modeling of the Spreading of Innovations in the Ancient World. – eTopoi Journal for Ancient Studies 7, 1-32
Grabundžija, Ana (2018): Eneolithic textile production, in: Balen, Jaqueline / Miloglav, I. / Rajković, D. (eds.): Back to the past: Copper Age in northern Croatia, Zagreb, Tiskara Zelina, 257-285
Grabundžija, Ana (2018): Threads that bind the establishement. Housing eneolithic textile craft, in: Balen, Jaqueline / Miloglav, I. / Rajković, D. (eds.): Back to the past: Copper Age in northern Croatia, Zagreb, Tiskara Zelina, 287-323
Grabundžija, Ana / Schoch, Chiara / Ulanowska, Agata (2016): Bones for the Loom. Weaving Experiment with Astragali Weights. – Prilozi Instituta za arheologiju u Zagrebu 33, 287-306
Grabundžija, Ana & Russo, Emmanuele (2016): Tools tell tales – climate trends changing threads in the prehistoric Pannonian Plain. – Documenta Praehistorica 43, 301-326
Grabundžija, Ana (2018): Two sides of a whorl. Unspinning meanings and functionality of eneolithic textile tools. in: Siennicka, Malgorzata / Rahmstorf, Lorenz / Ulanowska, Agata (eds.): First Textiles. The beginning of textile manufacture in Europe and Mediterranean, Oxford
Karg, Sabine / Diederichsen, Axel / Jeppson, S. (2018): Discussing flax domestication in Europe using biometric measurements on recent and archaeological flax seeds – a pilot study. in: Siennicka, Malgorzata / Rahmstorf, Lorenz / Ulanowska, Agata (eds.): First Textiles. The beginning of textile manufacture in Europe and Mediterranean, Oxford
Park, Martin (2017): Mid-Holocene Landscape Development in the Carpathian Region - Pastoralism, Climate and their Interdependencies, Berlin
Schumacher, Martin / Schier, Wolfram / Schütt, Brigitta (2016): Mid-Holocene vegetation development and herding-related interferences in the Carpathian region. – Quaternary International 415, 253–267
Schumacher, Martin / Schütt, Brigitta / Schier, Wolfram (2015): Near Landscapes of the Textile Revolution. – eTopoi Journal for Ancient Studies, Special Volume 4, 162–187
Schumacher, Martin / Dobos, Anna / Schier, Wolfram / Schütt, Brigitta (2018): Holocene valley incision in the southern Bükk foreland: Climate-human-environment interferences in northern Hungary. – Quaternary International 463, 91–109
