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I’m going to be getting some of Penelope Drooker’s books. There’s a pretty blank record of what our SE NDN ancestors wore. My first hunch was that they must have worn fabrics, since it’s too hot to be wearing leather year round. I asked some re-enactors, who do a lot of research on dress, about this and they pooh poohed it and said that our people would have been too primitive for something as complex as weaving!
So I asked, if they weren’t weaving, what’s all this fabric impressed pottery shards we find everywhere down here? I guess they were just weaving little squares of fabric just for that. Yeah right, you use rags on wet clay.
So this lady is in a position to properly research all this. Thanks, Penelope.
Native American Fabrics in Eastern North AmericaPrincipal Investigator: Penelope B. Drooker
Project years: ongoing
Keywords: fabrics, basketry, clothing, eastern North American archaeology and ethnography
Geographic extent: eastern North America
Project Background: Production of yarn and fabrics for bags, blankets, sashes, arm and leg bands, utilitarian and ceremonial garments, footwear, hunting and fishing nets, and such objects as wampum belts, as well as more rigid constructions for mats and baskets, was an essential part of daily life throughout eastern North America. Due to poor preservation conditions in this part of the continent, few such items survive from prehistoric times, and what does survive usually consists of carbonized fragments. Archaeologists therefore have tended to overlook fabrics and basketry when reconstructing the social economy of eastern North America. This means that they also have overlooked a significant segment of women’s work in this region.
Although manufactured cloth obtained through European traders quickly replaced homespun twined and interlaced fabrics for garments during the early historical period, the native fabric-making tradition continued and was elaborated in beaded finger-woven sashes and twined bags. Basket making continued and thrived, not only for family use but also increasingly for an external Euroamerican market. From New Brunswick and Maine to Louisiana, essential cash income has been derived from utilitarian and fancy baskets up to the present day.
Results to Date: The initial efforts in this project employed an under-utilized resource-impressions of fabrics, cordage, and basketry on clay vessels-to investigate fabric production in late prehistoric southeastern and midwestern North America (Drooker 1990, 1991a, 1991b, 1992, 1993, 1998). As more and more evidence is amassed, it is clear that fabric making was widespread and sophisticated, with most women devoting hundreds of hours to spinning and cloth production during a typical year, and (in many groups) part-time specialists producing elaborately-decorated ceremonial regalia (Drooker 1992). In fact, some types of Spanish lace may have been derived from fifteenth century New World prototypes (Drooker 1991a).
Two volumes covering various aspects of these problems are currently in press. The first, Fleeting Identities: Perishable Material Culture in Archaeological Research, edited by Penelope B. Drooker (Center for Archaeological Investigation, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale), focuses on theory, methodology, and case histories related to a broad range of perishable materials including fibers, yarns, fabrics, basketry, leather, wood, processed foods, and even fragile images in clay-covered cave walls. A chapter by Drooker provides an overview of how secondary evidence such as impressions of fabrics and basketry, mineral pseudomorphs (replicas) of disappeared fragile structures, or drawings and statues depicting perishable objects can be effectively employed when the primary evidence has vanished.
The second volume, Beyond Cloth and Cordage: Current Approaches to Archaeological Textile Research in the Americas, edited by Penelope B. Drooker and Laurie D. Webster (University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City) focuses specifically on fabrics. Chapters include an in-depth review of textile research in the Western Hemisphere since 1985 by Webster and Drooker, a guide to field techniques in recovering fragile fiber artifacts by Jenna T. Kuttruff and Mary Strickland-Olsen, a review of applicable chemical and physical analytical techniques by Kathryn Jakes, a model of fabric production, use, and discard by Annette Ericksen, Kathryn Jakes, and Virginia Wimberly, plus case studies from a broad range of time periods and geographical regions in the Western Hemisphere.
Current Directions: Although extant organic fabrics and basketry from prehistoric Southeastern ceremonial centers such as Etowah, Georgia, and Spiro, Oklahoma, and a few exceptional Northeastern sites such as Boucher, Vermont, have been studied in some detail, little systematic attention has been paid to scattered finds from prehistoric and early historical village sites throughout eastern North America. With analyses of examples from Alabama, Kentucky, and New York (e.g., Drooker 1996), the earlier research on prehistoric village fabrics impressed on pottery is being extended into more recent times. Of particular interest are the fifteenth through nineteenth century tradition of elaborate finger-woven sashes and structurally complex twined bags, and usage of trade cloth. Lectures on eastern North American textile history delivered in 1997 and 1998 at the Dickson Mounds Museum in Illinois and the Peabody Museum of Harvard University currently are being expanded into book form.
Drooker, Penelope B.
1990 Textile Production and Use at Wickliffe Mounds
(15Ba4), Kentucky. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 15(2):163-220.
1991a Mississippian Lace: A Complex Textile Impressed on
Pottery from the Stone Site, Tennessee. Southeastern Archaeology
10(2):79-97.
1991b Prehistoric Textiles at the Stone Site, Stewart
County, Tennessee. Frank H. McClung Museum Research Notes, No. 4.
1992 Mississippian Village Textiles at Wickliffe.
University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
1993 Matting and Fabric Impressions from Bottle Creek
(1Ba2), Alabama. Journal of Alabama Archaeology 39 (1&2):115-132.
1996 Reports on Mortuary Textiles from the Boughton
Hill, Dann, Geneva, Kipp Island, Marsh, Rice Woods, Silverheels, Tram, and Van
Etten Sites, Mary Jemison’s Burial, and Fort William Henry. On file in the
Department of Anthropology, New York State Museum, Albany.
1998 Cordage and Fabrics Impressed on American Bottom
Ceramics, ca. 450 BC-AD 1250: Preliminary Discussion. Report on file, Illinois
Transportation Archaeological Research Project, Urbana.
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