#but because textiles and fibrecrafts rot they vanish from the archaeological record | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

yarnandink · 1 year ago

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To all the fibre and textile crafters of centuries and millennia past, whose work has long since rotted away, all trace of their creations vanished, and their contribution to the growth and expression of their cultures erased and made invisible by the oblivion of decay, such that nowadays the inheritors of their craft and tradition are dismissed as hobbyists, and the skill and technical prowess required to create fibre or fabric is overlooked or dismissed outright.

raise a glass to the posts you love that end up deleted. to the fanart and fanfics you lose track of and can't locate. to the blogs you used to look through that ended up unexpectedly disappearing. to the things you didn't archive because you always assumed they'd be there.

#i have FEELINGS about the core role that textile technology had in letting our species survive & thrive in wildly different environments #without textiles and fibrecrafts you don't get settlers surviving long enough in Europe & Northern Asia to develop the cultures #let alone the empires #that have arisen across the two continents over the centuries #because unclothed humans in cold regions are very quickly dead humans #but because textiles and fibrecrafts rot they vanish from the archaeological record #and what isn't recorded becomes invisible and therefore either unknown or irrelevant #we talk about stone age. bronze age. iron age #what about the linen age. wool age. silk age #what about how those fibres shaped entire civilisations

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