{"id":50784,"date":"2021-04-12T05:30:28","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T10:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=50784"},"modified":"2021-04-12T05:30:28","modified_gmt":"2021-04-12T10:30:28","slug":"the-wool-road-of-northern-eurasia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=50784","title":{"rendered":"The Wool Road of Northern Eurasia"},"content":{"rendered":"

We all know about the Silk Road (which is actually a recent term), and some of us also know about the Bronze Road, the Iron Road, the Horse and Chariot Road, the Fur Road, the Glass Road, the Spice Road, and the Tea Road.\u00a0 Now we really have to take seriously the existence of a Wool Road.<\/p>\r\n

As I have often noted, I began my international investigation of the mummies of the Tarim Basin as a genetics project in 1991, since that was around the time that it became possible to study ancient DNA.\u00a0 After four years of diligent collection and analysis, I grew disenchanted with the expected precision of genetics research, and in 1995 I returned to Eastern Central Asia (ECA) with Elizabeth Barber and Irene Good, prehistoric textile specialists, to study the archeologically recovered textiles of the region.\u00a0 The results of their work turned out to yield tremendously valuable and revealing results about the origins and technology of the ancient textiles we examined.<\/p>\r\n

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Now we have a comprehensive survey of the C14 dates of 52 fragments of woven woolen textiles that interprets the nature and spread of this technology during the Bronze Age:<\/p>\r\n

N. I. Shishlina, O. V. Orfinskaya, P. Hommel, E. P. Zazovskaya, P. S. Ankushevae,, and J. van der Plicht, \"Bronze Age Wool Textile of the Northern Eurasia:\u00a0 New Radiocarbon Data\", Nanotechnologies in Russia<\/i>, 15.9-10 (2020), 629\u2013638.<\/p>\r\n

Abstract<\/b>

The Bronze Age of northern Eurasia is characterised by major socio-economic changes. A secondary products revolution defined an overall trajectory in these global economic transformations. Innovative changes in fibre technologies led to the appearance of woven wool textiles and the production and consumption of new types of garment. Analysis of the first direct AMS 14C dates from woven wool fibres from Bronze Age sites across northern Eurasia allow us to define key stages in the directional spread of woven wool textiles and to determine the cultural context of this process of technological transmission.

Conclusions<\/b>

Direct radiocarbon dating of the Bronze Age wool textiles and synchronous carbon-contained samples enables new details to be added to our understanding of the chronology of early wool economy and associated textile technologies and its transmission within northern Eurasia. Chronological phases and comparative analyses (including 14C-dates from Anatolia, South Caucasus, and China) reveal different phases of cultural and technological exchanges between the Near East and the Caucasus and special role of steppe groups (a few generations of weavers) in a dispersal spanning of new technology during the third millennium BC (Figs. 3, 4). Chronological and historical phases of the process are summarized as follows.

\u2014After 3300 calBC: early exchanges of prestige goods across Near East and the North Caucasus, with wool-cotton textiles moving as part of the elite exchange networks; mixed wool-cotton textile dates around 2910\u20132600 calBC.

\u2014The mid third millennium BC: spread of wool textile technologies and associated management out of the Near East \/ Anatolia and into the southern Caucasus; according to 14C data obtained for textiles and synchronous samples this happened between 2550\u20131925 calBC; an almost synchronous date was obtained from the dates of the northern steppe regions, suggesting that the spread of innovative technology from the South Caucasus to the steppe zone and further north up to the forest zone occurred as part of the same process between 2450\u20131900 calBC.

\u2014Between 1925\u20131775 calBC there was rapid eastward transmission of the wool (and associated technologies) across the steppe and forest-steppe of the Volga and southern Urals, out across Kazakhstan and into western China between 1700\u20131225 calBC. This same process of transmission through the steppe ultimately brought woven wool textiles into societies around the western Altai and the Sayan Mountains of southern Siberia.

Textile communities in the Caucasus and the adjacent areas of the steppe (Bedeni, Catacomb and Babino synchronous cultures) shared the same economic pathways and began to communicate and exchange technological knowledge of wool textile production during the second half of the third millennium BC, stimulating the expansion of pre-existing local networks of exchange. In about 200 years, these networks brought a new approach to the management and exploitation of animal herds from communities in the steppe and the piedmont area of the northern Caucasus. A new secondary product appeared: woven woollen textiles. Was this the result of imported livestock or an intensive phase of selective breeding by Catacomb culture shepherds? What is clear from the early production of wool items in the steppe is that it was a small scale, domestic activity of the local communities.

A far more rapid transmission occurred during the early second millennium BC through culturally connected communities of pastoralists known to archaeologists as the Timber-grave culture in the Middle Volga and Ural regions, Alakul (Early Andronovo) in the Urals region, and northern Kazakhstan as well as Federovo (Late Andronovo) in southern Siberia.

By the mid second millennium BC, through the steppe and forest-steppe zones of northern Eurasia from the Caucasus and the adjacent steppe to Kazakhstan\u2014a \u201cWool Road\u201d consisting of extensive networks of multi-direction and multicultural exchange, ran through the communities of Eurasia both in and around the steppe zone.\u00a0

This pattern of transmission was operating in parallel with the spread of wool technologies through the very different cultural environment of Western and Central Asia.

We assume that the wool clothing found in the Tarim Basin fits within the same processes of transmission through this northern Eurasian \u201cWool Road.\u201d\u00a0 The coincidence of the date of these finds, various similarities seen in the details of their clothing with those from Timber-grave and Alakul cultures of the Volga region, the Urals, Kazakhstan, and a basic similarity of their technological traditions suggest that the origins of these Chinese woollen textiles and textiles of the Eurasian steppe and forest zones are closely related.\u00a0

Weavers shared a preference for red-coloured dyes and a special interest in composite hats or headdresses ornamented with feathers and other organic materials. They also showed a strong preference for the use of leather, fur, and wool textiles together in the production of composite garments.

These tendencies seem to be in contrast with wool items from the southern Caucasus dated to the second half of the third millennium BC, known for the use of combined wool and plant fibres and their distinctive patterns of weaving.

In summary, the results of this study define a clear spatio-temporal trajectory of the emergence and rapid spread of woven woollen textile production across northern Eurasia and offers new insight into the processes underlying this transformation.<\/p>\r\n


The findings for the timing and spread of wool technology comport well with those for bronze, chariots, horse riding, iron, weapon types, ornamentation and artwork, and other archeologically recovered cultural artifacts that we have examined in previous posts.\u00a0 Moreover, they are conveniently correlated with archeological cultures such as Andronovo with which we are familiar from previous posts on various other early technologies.

N.B.:\u00a0 In these age-old Bronze Age times, there is nothing in ECA that can remotely be considered as \"Chinese\".

I invite Language Log readers to adduce relevant terms for wool and weaving that would have existed during the Bronze Age.


Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\r\n