Investigating cultural evolution through biological phylogenetic analyses of Turkmen textiles

The debate on the evolution of culture has focused on two processes in particular, phylogenesis and ethnogenesis. Recently, it has been suggested that the latter has probably always been more significant than the former. This proposal was assessed by applying cladistic methods of phylogenetic reconstruction to a data set comprising decorative characters from textiles produced by Turkmen tribes since the 18th century. The analyses focused on two periods in Turkmen history: the era in which most Turkmen practised nomadic pastoralism and were organised according to indigenous structures of affiliation and leadership; and the period following their defeat by Tsarist Russia in 1881, which is associated with the sedentarisation of nomadic Turkmen and their increasing dependence on the market. The results indicate that phylogenesis was the dominant process in the evolution of Turkmen carpet designs prior to the annexation of their territories, accounting for c.70% of the resemblances among the woven assemblages. The analyses also show that phylogenesis was the dominant process after 1881, although ethnogenesis accounted for an additional 10% of the resemblances among the assemblages. These results do not support the proposition that ethnogenesis has always been a more significant process in cultural evolution than phylogenesis.     

武进明代王洛家族墓

武进明代王洛家族墓地的发掘,使我们对明代贵族的舆服制度有了更深入的认识,而出土的精美的丝织品衣饰亦反映了当时高超的织造工艺。     

北京市石景山区一清代墓葬出土纺织品染料与染色方法综合研究

清代的染色技术无论在染料的选择、染色方法,还是在获得颜色的数量上均达到我国古代天然染料染色的最高峰。文献和传世品研究极大推进了对清代纺织品染色技术的了解,但对清代考古纺织品染料的分析研究尚无结果发表。在此,对北京市石景山区2006年出土清代墓葬中纺织品的染料和染色方法进行了研究。化学分析使用超高效液相色谱法,首次将我国考古染料结合历史文献、传世纺织品颜色及染料组成详细比对,检测出苏木、黄檗、含鞣花酸染料(疑为橡斗)及蓝草四种染料。大多数样品上鉴定出一到两种染料,少数样品可能由三种或更多染料染成。相同的染料组合可以通过不同用量获得深浅不同的颜色。研究第一次对同一墓葬出土不同织物的染色方法进行比较,发现同种染料可以用于染不同类型、质地和用途的织物。这套纺织品所用的染料和染色方法与文献记载和传世样品都相符合。这一研究也是针对清代考古出土纺织品染料展开的首次成功的分析鉴定,补充了传世纺织品和染色历史文献,是清代染色史的重要部分。     

Is Cross‐Section Shape a Distinct Feature in Plant Fibre Identification?

Correct identification of textile fibres is an important issue in archaeology because the use of different materials can yield crucial information about the society that produced the textiles. Textiles made of plant and animal fibres can normally be easily distinguished, but to distinguish between different types of plant fibres, in particular different types of bast fibres, is difficult. Some years back it was shown that the features fibre diameter, lumen diameter, dislocation (nodes), and cross markings cannot be used on their own to distinguish between the typical bast fibres used for textiles in ancient Europe: flax, hemp, and nettle. Particularly not when only a few fibres are available for an examination so that statistical analysis is not possible, as is often the case in archaeology. The last two characterization features typically used to distinguish between bast fibres are cross‐section shape and lumen shape. In this paper, we present a study of retted and unretted fibres (in the stem) of flax, nettle, and hemp, and show that also cross‐section shape and lumen shape cannot be used as distinguishing features on their own.     

Wilful Design: The Sampler in Nineteenth-Century Britain

This article recovers the cultural significance of the sampler in nineteenth-century Britain. I argue that this mainstay of female education models a circular shape of development in which the young girl painfully revises earlier experience; the subject is conceived of as perpetually reworking herself without obvious linear progression. Though this article is situated against canonical works of Victorian fiction, it focuses primarily on actual samplers to argue that these pieces of childhood embroidery should be recognized as a form of life-writing. After establishing the conventions of the sampler, I turn to an apparently anomalous example that exemplifies the temporal and affective patterns ingrained by the pedagogical exercise of sampler sewing. My central artefact is an autobiographical sampler from the needle of a 17-year-old Sussex girl named Elizabeth Parker. Currently housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, this textile from 1830 recounts Parker’s childhood experiences in service, and the horrors of physical abuse and sexual assault that led her to contemplate suicide, all compressed into 46 lines of cross-stitch. I argue that the sampler as a pedagogical tool resists the Bildungsroman’s model of the self as formed through temporal progression towards self-contained adult agency. Instead, the sampler materially and thematically enforces the recursive temporal dynamics of conversion.     

Stable Isotope Sourcing of Wool from Textiles at Pacatnamú

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic compositions were determined for wool textiles from the Lambayeque (c. ad 1100–1320) occupation at Pacatnamú in the Jequetepeque Valley, northern Peru. The isotopic data demonstrate that the wool was not obtained via long‐distance exchange with the highlands and was most probably derived from locally raised camelids. In light of other lines of evidence (diversity of dyes used to produce the same colours in textiles and the low quality of the weaving), textiles at Pacatnamú appear not to have been as effective a marker of political power and prestige for local elites as they were elsewhere in the Andean region.     

Shoddy heap: a material history between waste and manufacture

This essay uses a present-day mountain of textile waste known as ‘shoddy’ as an entry point into the history and ramifications of the development of wool recycling technology in West Yorkshire, England. It is argued that this entity, produced since the early nineteenth century by means of the collection, shredding, and re-spinning of old and discarded wool rags, emerged as both technological innovation and raw material. Its history, defined in part by its precarious position at the nexus of waste and manufacture, is that of a reconfiguration of technology with simultaneously ethical, political, and environmental dimensions.     

Identification of ancient textiles from Yingpan,Xinjiang, by multiple analytical techniques

Various extraordinary textiles were excavated from a graveyard at Yingpan, Xinjiang, on the middle route of the ancient Silk Road. Applications of western motifs and designs to traditional Chinese textiles led to the emergence of compound woven textiles with central Asian characters. For a better understanding of the cultural exchanges and textile trade between the West and the East in ancient times, identifications of archaeological fibres and dyes were carried out for various funerary textile objects by using multiple analytical techniques, such as high performance liquid chromatography with photodiode detection, optical microscopy, scanning electronic microscopy (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Fibre identifications were performed for 35 archaeological textile samples, and the results showed that the ancient textiles were mostly made from Bombyx mori silk and wool. The SEM and FT-IR experimental results revealed that these ancient textiles remained morphologically intact due to the special (very dry) climate in Xinjiang, but noticeably degraded at the molecular level due to long time thermo-ageing and/or biodegradation. The principal colouring matters, such as alizarin, purpurin, indigotin and luteolin, were respectively characterised for nine archaeological textile samples. The yellow dyestuffs derived from luteolin-based plants were assumed to have been imported to China from the Middle East and Western Asia through the Silk Road.     

A re-assessment of bronze age wool

Measurements of twelve new samples of Danish Bronze Age wool showed them to be hairy medium fleeces. Supporting evidence was obtained that a high proportion of fine fibres in a yarn results from the plucking of wool during the moult before the hairy fibres have been released from the skin. The fine fibres were closer in diameter to the underwool of the wild ancestor than to those of the Soay sheep (supposedly a Bronze Age survivor), indicating a more primitive fleece. The samples described include the first white Bronze Age wool. Those with natural pigmentation in every fibre could be black or brown, while those with pigmented and white fibres are thought to be a mixture of brown and white (by analogy with the Soay) rather than grey, which is unknown in the Soay.     

河北定州商墓出土玉器光学无损分析

为充分获取河北定州商墓出土玉器的物质信息,利用X射线荧光光谱分析(XRF)、X射线衍射分析(XRD)、激光拉曼光谱分析(Raman)等无损光学技术手段对玉器进行科学分析。获得玉器成分、矿相和结构等信息,研讨其质地和来源。从而探究先民的玉料来源、制玉技术、文化发展与文明互动交流诸方面问题。进一步探讨当时的生产力、社会发展水平,经济组织形态以及拥有这批玉器的人群在当时背景下的发展程度。研究结果对进一步研究河北地区的商代社会有参考价值。