Period: Generel Prehistory

Project title: Proviniensbestemmelse af arkæologiske tekstiler

Researcher: Karin Margarita Frei, CTR, University of Copenhagen

E-mail: kmfrei(at)hum.ku.dk

Year: 2007

Abstract:

Denmark holds a unique collection of well-preserved prehistoric textiles from the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Many of these textiles are made of wool. Wool is an organic material that quickly perishes, but thanks to the oxygen-poor, moist and acidic environments in which the textiles were found, they have remained preserved for thousands of years.

In this experiment a new method for analysing prehistoric wool was tested. The theory was that by analysing the chemical traces in the wool it would be possible to discover exactly where the sheep that produced it lived. At Lejre Experimental Centre a number of samples of wool were collected from the Centres primitive breeds of sheep. Simultaneously samples of the surrounding soil were collected as well as a single shell. For comparison, analyses of corresponding samples from New Zealand, the Shetlands, the Faroe Islands, Sweden and Norway were carried out.

The experiment showed that the soil and the grass from different places have chemical compositions that are unique and that are directly traceable in the wool. Thus this new method may help researchers discover where prehistoric textiles were originally made.

By analysis of the shell, the shell turned out to represent a usable average of the chemical composition of the area. Hence it was shown that analysis of small animals may be used to show the soil composition of an area.

Reference number: HAF 10/07