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Materials and Technologies Indicative of Neolithic Period

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When we talked about clothing of Neolithic period, can also be called New Stone Age (4500BC-2400BC), the first view will jump out is animal hides punched with awls and sewn with sinew and bone needles, first appearance of woven plant fibre textile. The developing journey is from using plant directly as clothing to using plant fibre to make garment. Like food and shelter, clothing is a basic human requirement, especially in some districts where warm clothing is necessary.
Furs and unscraped hides remained popular materials for clothing, even in areas where technology was advancing. Fur provided warmth and protection from the elements far beyond other Neolithic clothing materials, and required reasonably small processing. Furs were often …show more content…

‘From the earliest hand held spindle and distaff and basic hand loom to the highly automated spinning machines and power looms of today, the principles of turning vegetable fibre into cloth have remained constant: Plants are cultivated and the fibre harvested. The fibres are cleaned and aligned, then spun into yarn or thread. Finally the yarns are interwoven to produce cloth. Today we also spin complex synthetic fibres, but they are still woven together the way cotton and flax were millennia ago.’ (Dr Francis Pryor.2011)

Figure 2: Woven fabric made of bark another plant fibres
Fibres of a vegetative nature come out to be the first used in creation of early textiles. Meanwhile vegetable fibres cannot be used to make felt, it is reasonable to think that weaving or spinning were expanded in tandem with the use of plant fibres such as linen or grass. Once fibres have been spun into thread, string or yarn, it is probable to weave them by hand or by loom.
In the Neolithic era grass, brunch and other plant fibres were woven into many different forms of protection from the elements and could be used for lining inside other garments as well. Capes of grass supplied shelter from snow and rain-prehistoric raincoats.
Flax (an indigenous wild plant in the Mediterranean region), wool and goat hair were commonly spun into thread during the Neolithic. The rise of agriculture during this time allowed regular access to these materials, and cloth was a common product

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