Earliest Evidence for Textile Technologies

Recent excavations at Çatalhöyük1 in Anatolia, Turkey have recovered remains of textiles, cordage and basketry that add to finds from previous work at this Neolithic site. Along with occurrences from other sites in the Near East, North Africa and Europe, they enable charting the development of textile techniques. This paper argues that the woven textiles found in Çatalhöyük (6700–6500 cal. BC) fit in a long development in the Palaeolithic, Epipalaeolitic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic periods, during which strings and basketry techniques were used to produce a large variety of objects such as shelters, rigid containers, and flexible fabrics that may be termed textiles. Çatalhöyük is currently the earliest site where preserved woven textiles have been found and forms the starting point for our discussion of the emergence of textile technologies. Weaving appears across a wide geographical area in the first half of the 7th millennium cal. BC. We argue that two of the earliest attested basketry techniques, weft-twining, and weft-wrapping (soumak and related techniques), are closely connected to the development of weaving. The size and edges of textiles, matting and basketry provide the basis to reconstruct tools, loom types and production technology and give important insights in a society’s gendered technological development, that are different from those provided by the study of lithic, ceramic or metal technology. Many find spots in the Near East, North Africa and Europe document this development.