Paleolithic Handspinning

[john]

All -

Just read this

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7758986.stm

From the news thread.

The mystery object?

My recognition was damn near instantaneous, as in a previous

Incarnation I built hand spinning and weaving equipment

As a living, for about a decade.

I would bet mucho grande that the mystery object

Is the whorl to a drop spindle,

Which is the second earliest spinning device.

The first is spinning fiber across your thigh.

http://www.interweave.com/spin/resource ... o_tech.pdf

Across both the world and the millenia drop spindle whorls

Have retained an amazing, almost archival similarity in

Their morphology.

I do not know of any examples which even come close to

The Paleolithic! Let alone the cognitive implications.........


hoka hey


john

[john]

All -

As I suspicioned, the earliest whorls seem

To be attributed to the Neolithic.

http://www.butser.org.uk/iaftex_hcc.html

Hmmm.........

Another Gap in the

Hematite Tapes.


hoka hey

john

[kbs2244]

John:
Good guess based on the size of the hole.
The problem is that once an explanation like that is accepted, it starts to be applied out of context.
I remember a lot of sites around Israel where they found donut shaped objects in an obvious military context.
They insisted on calling them “loom weights.”
I thought they looked familiar, but I don’t know much about weaving.
When I showed a photo of them to a friend of mine who is an archer, and had given me some lessons, he recognized them right away as arrow wrenches used to straighten a shaft.
I wrote a letter to the editor suggesting as much, which was published, but it was over a year later that some one with some "accreditation" floated the idea and it became accepted.

[john]

John:
Good guess based on the size of the hole.
The problem is that once an explanation like that is accepted, it starts to be applied out of context.
I remember a lot of sites around Israel where they found donut shaped objects in an obvious military context.
They insisted on calling them “loom weights.”
I thought they looked familiar, but I don’t know much about weaving.
When I showed a photo of them to a friend of mine who is an archer, and had given me some lessons, he recognized them right away as arrow wrenches used to straighten a shaft.
I wrote a letter to the editor suggesting as much, which was published, but it was over a year later that some one with some "accreditation" floated the idea and it became accepted.

kbs224 -

Couldn't find the picture I wanted right offhand.

However, at least in N. America, arrow wrenches were a lever action

Tool. i.e., bore a hole in, say, the broad end of a tibia,

To accept the arrowshaft, heat arrowshaft over a fire

(Lignin has this lovely quality of becoming plastic when heated)

Then, insert arrowshaft into wrench and, by eyeball, straighten.

I've built them (both arrows and arrowshaft wrenches,

And done that).

So I rather doubt your donut stones as straighteners,

As what I am familiar with - worldwide -

Usually utilises a lever up to a foot long.

I could be wrong.

Anyway, here's a link interesting in its own right

With a reference to a Clovis baton style shaft straightener

Similar to Solutrean/Magdalenian baton style shaft straighteners.

Mind you, these were first used, most likely,

For Atl Atls, not arrows.

http://www.athenapub.com/10gault.htm

hoka hey

john

[Cognito]

Weaving has been around far longer than anyone would care to admit. Sort of destroys the caveman wearing skins paradigm.



http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscien ... venus2.asp

From the article:

"At the simplest level, he said, the depiction of fabric provides evidence that Paleolithic people were familiar with cloth, which would suggest that weaving had been developing for hundreds of thousands of years before the figurines were carved or molded."

[kbs2244]

As I understood it John, it wasn't so much for straightening out a bend in the shaft as a kind of smoothing, or sander-grinder, tool to take out nicks etc.

[john]

As I understood it John, it wasn't so much for straightening out a bend in the shaft as a kind of smoothing, or sander-grinder, tool to take out nicks etc.

kbs224 -

Not so. It is actually a multistep process.

Shit, this takes me back 38 years to when I was living

In an isolated one room cabin in the back hills of Southern Oregon.

First, you collect your arrowshaft material.

You might choose Hazel, seeking the straightest shoots,

Or you might split straightgrain Cedar into arrowshaft sized billets.

You hang the material up in the rafters to get really dry.

Then, you sort your stock, discarding the shafts which are

Too warped for redemption (Damn, that sounds

Like my life).

You take a scraper to the useable shafts and

Shape them into even cylinders, which, at this point,

Will still be somewhat warped.

Then you build a fire and get out your straightener

And heat the shaft at its points of warpage.

It needs to be quite hot but not charred.

The Lignin in the wood - which is kind of a binding resin

For the fibers - will have then melted enough to

Allow you to apply the straightener and bend the shaft into

Alignment. You need to hold it in this position until the shaft

Cools. And there you go.

All you need to do then is trim the shaft to length,

Fletch it, and attach the point.

Nota Bene: The same technique applies to making

Wooden recurved bows. You shape your bow, then,

Heat the tips of the bow over a fire, and create the recurve by

Bending them over your knee, which is protected from the heat

By a leather or cloth pad.


hoka hey


john

[kbs2244]

I will bow to your experience.
But would the same techniques be used in the very different conditions of the mid east?

[john]

I will bow to your experience.
But would the same techniques be used in the very different conditions of the mid east?

kbs224 -

Yup. Arrow straighteners of similar geometry are spread across the

Globe, and across time.

The key to this is the cognitive understanding of the behavior of

Lignin when heated to a certain degree.

You can do this yourself;

Go out and cut a 2' long branch, maybe 1/2" in diameter and

Trim off the twigs. Hold it over a fire or ever a burner on

Your stove until a foot long midsection becomes quite hot;

i.e., you can't hold onto it with you bare hand.

Remove it from the heat.

Now bend it into a gentle arc and hold it in that position

For five minutes. Then release pressure.

You'll find that it is now locked into its new conformation.

Thus, my argument that cognition ultimately created

The techne of arrow straighteners.

There is one fairly common exception, also distributed worldwide:

Arrows made with a mainshaft of stiff reeds or cane, with

An inserted foreshaft of a much harder and heavier wood.

They were fletched and pointed similarly to wood shafted arrows.

The reason for the foreshaft was to give the arrow enough mass

To be effective in penetrating the target, as reeds or cane

Weigh practically nothing. I've never experimented with those,

So do not know if they respond to heat treatment the same way.

Hell, almost forgot............. there was another type of shaft straightener

Which consists an oblong piece of stone maybe 3" x 6",

To fit comfortably in your hand, with a groove cut into the

Length of it to accept the diameter of the shaft.

Same process, heat shaft, insert into straightener, eyeball it,

Hold until it cools.


hoka hey

john