En naken forntid? - om textilforskningens roll i den övergripande arkeologiska diskussionen
Author
Summary, in English
The aim of this essay is to make clear, whether or not, textile research is visualised in a wider archaeological discussion today. The aim is then to discuss what the archaeological and textile technological research situation in Scandinavia looks like today, and how that relate to what has happened in these two research fields during the years. This essay also has a purpose to find out if there is a need of visualising textile research more in future archaeology, how that shall be done, and what that can possibly supply to our general picture of the prehistory.
The head questions are discussed in the light of three investigations. The first is a study of literature used in archaeological education at five Swedish universities. The other two consists of a study which is aimed to find out how textile research results are published, and one in which archaeologists and textile researchers have answered questions about how they experience the relation between archaeology and textile research.
There has also been done a comparison between interpretations of the archaeological material from the site of Löddeköpinge in west Scania. This comparison shows the difference between a traditional archaeological interpretation, and one that has as its purpose to shed light over the textile production at the site.
This essay has been able to show that textile research today exists in a wide scale, but that it is seldom visualised in the general archaeological discussion. The explanation of this can be found in the history of these two research fields, in the communication between archaeologists and textile researchers, and perhaps in gender roles. If the results of textile research are used in another way, they can bring a lot of information to the general picture of prehistory. They can be used in discussions about social and religious ideas, social organisation, cultural influences, economy and trade. Some changes have to be done to make textile research more visible in the future. It is, among other things, important to work on a better dialogue between textile researchers and archaeologists, to give archaeology students an education which contains information about textile related finds, and to make textile researchers publish their results in a way that can be understood by archaeologists.
The head questions are discussed in the light of three investigations. The first is a study of literature used in archaeological education at five Swedish universities. The other two consists of a study which is aimed to find out how textile research results are published, and one in which archaeologists and textile researchers have answered questions about how they experience the relation between archaeology and textile research.
There has also been done a comparison between interpretations of the archaeological material from the site of Löddeköpinge in west Scania. This comparison shows the difference between a traditional archaeological interpretation, and one that has as its purpose to shed light over the textile production at the site.
This essay has been able to show that textile research today exists in a wide scale, but that it is seldom visualised in the general archaeological discussion. The explanation of this can be found in the history of these two research fields, in the communication between archaeologists and textile researchers, and perhaps in gender roles. If the results of textile research are used in another way, they can bring a lot of information to the general picture of prehistory. They can be used in discussions about social and religious ideas, social organisation, cultural influences, economy and trade. Some changes have to be done to make textile research more visible in the future. It is, among other things, important to work on a better dialogue between textile researchers and archaeologists, to give archaeology students an education which contains information about textile related finds, and to make textile researchers publish their results in a way that can be understood by archaeologists.
Department/s
Publishing year
2005
Language
Swedish
Full text
Document type
Student publication for Master's degree (one year)
Topic
- History and Archaeology
Keywords
- Textilier
- Experimentell arkeologi
- Textilredskap
- Archaeology
- Arkeologi
Supervisor
- Eva Andersson