In the 80's, a housing development site off Cape Canaveral in Florida beca me a highly publicized archeological site. The Windover peat bog has the perfect preservation material with its' ph neutral environment, and coincidentally, an ancient burial ground for Early Archaic native americans. That's in the 6000's BC... Before the Egyptian pyramids! The archeological dig recovered the skeletal remains of 168 individuals. With these individuals came a wealth of unprecedented information. Even their brains were well preserved for DNA analysis!
As interesting as 7,000 year old brains are, Handwoven Goods is particularly interested in the significant number of handwoven artifacts found "peatified" with all those skeletal remains. The fabrics started to decompose after removal from the peat bogs. A leading expert in archeological woven materials, Dr. James Adovasio called on Dr. Bruce Humphrey to develop an innovative method of coating the weavings in parylene, a "molecular glue," and freeze drying them for future generations to be able to study.
This molecular level of study enabled researchers to decipher yellowish-red veneer on one fabric sample to be the connective tissue of a deer, suggesting the cloth might have been a lining to a deer-hide covering for the burial. None of the Windover weavings had preserved decorations. Palm fibers were extracted and processed by tools or even with their teeth, chewing the fibers until they could be twisted. One grave yielded a "cache" of bone needles and a possible bone weft packing tool, perhaps from the bag found nearby.
Textiles were almost certainly produced on some type of fixed frame loom that was "staked" horizontally without heddles, or with a back-strap loom and approached with a different posture to achieve three-weft rows, parallel to the long axis of the body of the weaver.
The woven items found include basketry, open twined mats, a possible hood, a bag or cap, close twined globular bags (one of which had a drawstring) and intentionally produced mortuary shrouds. The shrouds associated with adults were used by these individuals as clothing or blankets with some degree of frequency. The lack of wear on the mortuary shrouds for kids had a very fine gauge and no wear marks. The absence of brain matter in younger burials suggests that there was a delay which may reflect the time required to produce a suita ble burial shroud. Steaks were used with the mortuary shroud to affix the dead at the bottom of the bog. The tops of the steaks were above water level to mark the grave. Researchers noticed that burial shrouds had different warp diameters, but all the same warp diameters were in the same sections of the bog. They feel this suggests different groups of weavers within a single population, and that each of these groups had assigned burial plots within the bog.
Though not the oldest fiber-based productions, the Windover twined and plain weave textiles are the most ancient examples of their type in North America, if not the entire western hemisphere. The complexity of the weavings suggests this is not the beginning of handweaving in North America, but a representation of a continuing evolution of weaving with very ancient roots. The findings of these weavings challenged our understanding of Southeast native americans. Such labor intensive handweaving has profound implications for group mobility, division and organization of labor, seasonality and subsistence practices, personal status, and a wide range of other issues.
