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This essay is the result of over a year of on-and-off research, making this the essay I have spent the longest working on and thinking about. It felt daunting to write, as it covers such a range of topics. I considered doing a deep dive into each of them specifically, creating a 10 (or more?) part series that would eventually culminate in the secondhand market. I ultimately didn’t end up doing that (though perhaps it is an idea for a book…?) and instead broke it down into just two parts: Part 1 (this essay) looks at the broader forces of production and consumption that helped shape the secondhand market in medieval England and Part 2 – will go into how these markets likely operated in practice. Enjoy!

In recent years, growing secondhand markets have reshaped how we think about and interact with our clothing. According to industry estimates, secondhand sales accounted for roughly 10% of the global retail market in 2025 and are projected to steadily grow into 2030. This expansion is attributed to a constellation of factors, including a heightened consumer awareness of environmental and social costs of the fashion industry, changing attitudes about ownership, and new levels of accessibility, made possible by digital resale platforms. I am not about to argue that this interpretation is not correct – it is, at least, in part.

Secondhand markets rarely expand in isolation – more often, their growth is structurally entangled with broader patterns of production and consumption. Alongside the rise of resale, the global manufacture of new garments also continues to increase and the purchasing of those garments remains at historically high levels. Concurrently, each purchased garment is worn fewer times on average before being donated, resold or even simply discarded. These practices of consumption are driven, to various degrees, by both widening economic inequality and by social media, where increasing visibility and microtrends intensify the pace at which we are expected to consume fashion. Therefore, the growth of secondary markets cannot be disentangled from these patterns but rather, is better understood as one of their consequences.1

While these may appear to be distinctly modern social and economic dynamics, they have clear historical parallels. Forms of secondhand exchange likely existed in England as early as the 11th century, as expanding trade networks with continental Europe increased the flow of imported consumer goods. Over time, these objects would move beyond their original owner, through systems of inheritance, gifting or resale, into other households across the economic spectrum. However, it was in the 14th century that secondhand clothing markets really began to flourish, driven by the convergence of two major forces of production and consumption : the expansion of the English cloth industry and the social reorganisation that followed the Black Death, during which clothing became an increasingly visible marker of identity and status.

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From a research perspective, objects have a lot to offer. Their raw materials can reveal important information about landscapes, climates, agricultural practices, and ecological knowledge. The techniques used to make them can tell us about technological innovation, economies, and migration patterns. And their findspots can give insight into how people of the past valued and interpreted space. But perhaps most interesting, and hardest to get at archaeologically, is objects as mediators between our perception and the external world. Through sensory engagement, what we touch, smell, and taste can structure how our inner experiences are organised and remembered. Therefore, when we engage with the same object as another person, our sensory experiences gain a mutual touchpoint. And over time, as shared experiences accumulate, this can contribute to a collective sense of identity. This is particularly interesting when viewed through craft practice, where repetitive and highly skilled sensory engagement is central to production. This essay is going to explore that relationship through one craft practice in particular – spinning.

Before the spinning wheel was invented, all yarn was spun by hand. This was done in a variety of ways across time and place, and all are worth exploring in their own right, but the one I am going to focus on – dominant across Europe in prehistory – is the drop spindle. This was a simple device that consisted of two parts: the spindle, a thin rod, and the spindle whorl, a round weight with a hole in the center into which the spindle could be inserted. Spindle rods, because they were typically made of wood, rarely survive in the archaeological record. But spindle whorls, often made of a variety of materials like stone, bone, clay, and sometimes even precious materials like amber and jet, are persistent archaeological indicators of textile production. Importantly, variations in weight and size can also give us information about what kind of textile production might have been taking place at a site.

A drop spindle works by combining rotation and tension to twist loose fibres into yarn. The spinner begins the rotation with a flick of the hand, suspends the spindle in the air, and must make sure it stays in constant motion. As it rotates, the spinner must steadily feed fibres into the twist, thinning the raw materials to a consistent thickness in a process known as drafting. The amount of drafting largely determines the thickness of the yarn: drawing the fibres out further before allowing twist to enter produces a thinner thread, while drafting less results in a thicker yarn. Once the spun yarn is long enough, the length is wrapped around the spindle shaft and the process is repeated.

Experimental archaeological methods have determined that skilled spinners could produce between 30 to 50 metres of yarn per hour. If this is paired with figures estimating roughly 42,600 metres of thread was required to produce just two costumes – one male and one female – it would take between 852 and 1,420 hours to produce enough yarn to construct just two outfits. This is roughly the equivalent to 106 to 178 working days. When other types of textile are also factored in, such as bedding and sailcloth, it is clear spinning would have occupied a significant part of a woman's daily lives. So much so, that it is likely if a woman didn’t have her hands otherwise occupied by another task, she was spinning. This might have important implications for how women viewed and experienced the process – perhaps as a default activity rather than something to be ticked off the to-do list. In this way, it might be comparable to us scrolling on our phones today.

With that time investment in mind, it is important to consider the full range of sensory input involved in spinning. This would have reached far beyond the basic five senses though those do play a significant role. Sensory input also includes things that are less often discussed : proprioception, the unconscious awareness of body position that allows for automatic movements without deliberate thought, like adjusting posture or hand placement; kinaesthesia, the conscious perception of movement; the vestibular sense, which regulates balance and spatial orientation; and interoception, the awareness of internal body states such as fatigue and hunger, which would affect rhythm and endurance.

Even though spinning may appear mechanically simple, it is a constant negotiation between gravity, momentum, fibre and body requiring the spinner to be sensorially attuned to things like pressure, friction, and speed. So, as a spinner becomes more skilled, they are not merely “getting better” at producing yarn; they are learning to communicate more deeply to and with the materials and the craft itself.

To look at this in practice, we can consider two very different spinners: a spinner producing a coarse wool for sailcloth and a spinner turning flax into linen. Before we even get to spinning, it is worth mentioning that there are huge differences in the processing of wool and flax, each creating its own sensorium of input that would already be informing the sensory receptors of the spinners.

First we will consider the materials themselves and how they shape the spinner’s sensory experience. Linen comes from the flax plant – the fibres are extracted from the stem, meaning each fibre will be as long as the plant is tall, often between one to three feet. Wool, by contrast, comes from a sheep’s fleece (in this case), meaning the length of individual fibres is limited by the growth of the sheep’s coat. These differences in fibre length directly influence where and how the spinner positions and moves thier hands during drafting. When spinning wool, the shorter staple length requires the hands to be held closer together, working in compact, short motions and this would only be amplified by spinning a thicker thread. This also allows the twist to enter the yarn more quickly. But the long fibers of flax require a wider drafting space thus the process is more physically elongated. These differences in patterns of movement create different rhythmic structures, and may be reflected in a spinner’s embodied temporality.

The tactile experience itself also differs profoundly. Wool is soft, fluffy, and elastic. It can compress easily between the fingers and spring back into shape. When it is prepared for sailcloth, it retains much of its natural lanolin content – the waxy substance that leaves a faint residue on the hands when you touch a sheep or unwashed wool. As spinning progresses, the lanolin would gradually accumulate on the spinner’s fingers, subtly affecting friction. The fingers would grow slightly tacky and the changing surface of the skin reshapes how tension and twist are perceived.

Flax, in contrast, is smooth, cool, and comparatively inelastic, lacking the loft of wool. It does not spring back under the fingers, but rather resists and slides. For this reason, flax is considered to be easier spun when wet, as moisture tends to make it more supple and helps to manage its natural pectin, which can otherwise make the fibres feel slightly gummy. Wet spinning can often be hard to see archaeologically – the only evidence that is really left behind are wetting bowls of ancient Egypt, through which flax was drawn as it was being spun. Otherwise, ethnographic accounts tell us that fingers would be frequently wetted or saliva could be used, either by pulling the flax directly through the mouth, or by licking the fingers (this method is the cause for facial deformities in folktales such as the German “The Three Spinners” or in the Scottish story of Habetrot). The damp fibres would have felt cooler against the skin and would have slightly slickened the surface, requiring a more precise regulation of pressure and tension. The fingers must constantly recalibrate as moisture moves in and out of the process. The use of saliva also brings in taste receptors and might necessitate a change in drinking habits, which would also have a bodily effect, making spinning an even more multi-sensory experience.

In addition to differences in length and tactility, wool and flax also differ at a structural level. Wool has microscopic scales that help to lock the fibres together (this is why wool felts so easily). Linen fibres, by contrast, are smooth. As a result, wool can hold together with a relatively loose twist, while flax requires a tighter, more sustained twist to prevent fibres from slipping apart. This distinction affects how the spinner manages tension, drafting speed, and rotational momentum of the spindle whorl.

This brings us, then, to the role of the spindle whorl. Producing a thicker thread, as for sailcloth, typically requires a heavier whorl. The additional weight increases the pull of gravity and ensures the forming thread is under the correct amount of tension. This weight would also create a downward force on the spinner’s arm, subtly influencing posture, shoulder engagement and balance. Over time, the heavier whorl could also contribute to muscle fatigue, shaping the spinner’s endurance and bodily adjustments throughout the task. Heavier whorls also tend to rotate more slowly, but with greater momentum and can maintain spin for longer after being set in motion. A light whorl can spin faster, but tends to lose momentum more quickly, requiring more frequent flicking from the spinner. Therefore, the spinner must be able to feel the speed of rotation in the thread – if the whorl is moving too fast, the yarn over-twists and too slow of a twist can come to create a weak spot in the yarn. In this way, the spinning process becomes a continuous sensory negotiation between fibre structure, rotational force, gravity, and the body’s own balance and proprioceptive awareness.

While it is easy to understand the amount of sensory input involved in spinning, less direct is the question as to how this bodily engagement comes to shape cognition. (I should add here that I am not, to any extent, an expert in cognitive science, but I think there are a lot of interesting things to consider when linking it to craft practice – if you are an expert in this, please get in touch!). What I am going to foreground here is the relationship between sensory input and cognition.

Many of you are likely familiar with the homunculus, the mid-twentieth century visual model of how the body is represented in the sensory and motor cortexes. Although it is now largely considered a simplified model, it remains instructive. In both cortexes, the hand represents disproportionately large areas, demonstrating the density of neural processing required both for tactile discrimination (sensory cortex) and precise motor control (motor cortex). So, it is through the hands that perception and movement because closely integrated, essentially making the hand an important cognitive organ in its own right.

Repeated sensory engagement builds and strengthens neural pathways and can increase the speed and accuracy of motor response. It refines the brain’s ability to detect subtle differences and over time these things can become anticipatory knowledge and shape cognitive habits. Therefore, spinning, during which the spinner must maintain sustained contact with the material for large amounts of time, would be significantly moulding the sensory and motor cortexes. And this would then also have an effect on how a spinner experiences and understands other tasks and engagements beyond spinning. This likely has an even stronger effect when spinning is learned at an early age.

It is through these patterned sensory experiences and reinforced neural pathways that shared understanding and collective habits begin to take shape. When individuals repeatedly engage with the same materials in similar ways, their movements, perceptions and judgements become aligned, creating subtle but crucial shared meaning. It is in this way that we can use objects and materials as an entry point to understanding collective identity and community.

It is interesting then, to think about the subtle differences between the groups who primarily spun linen and those who spun wool – how did this shape posture or hand movements? Did linen spinners have a more refined palate for plant-based foods? Linen was often more closely associated with a high social status – how did this knowledge affect the way a spinner considered themselves (though sense of self was likely quite different in prehistory)? While we can only speculate, these questions highlight the profound ways that objects can be important in understanding past communities as well as the significance of multidisciplinary approaches.

If you're a spinner, please do let me know about your sensory experiences! And if you enjoy my reading work, a small contribution would be greatly appreciated! I love reading and writing about textiles (and cognitive science now, apparently) but I am also trying to support myself through grad school (it’s not easy!)

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Bibliography:

Andersson, E. 2008. Tools, Textile Production and Society in Viking Age Birka. In: Gleba, M. Munkholt, C. & Nosch, M. (eds), Dressing the Past, Oxford, Oxbow Books. 68-85.

Bender Jørgensen, L. 2012. The introduction of sails to Scandinavia: Raw materials, labour and land. In: Berge, R. Jasinski, M.E. & Sognnes, K. (eds), N-TAG TEN: Proceedings of the 10th Nordic TAG Conference at Stiklestad, Norway 2009. Oxford, Archaeopress. 173–181.

Crowfoot, G.M. 1931. Methods of Handspinning in Egypt and the Sudan.

Harris. S. 2019. The sensory archaeology of textiles. In: Skeates, R. and Day, J. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Sensory Archaeology. Taylor and Francis, New York, NY. 210 - 232.

Howes, D. 2019. Digging up the sensorium : On the sensory revolution in archaeology. In: Skeates, R. and Day, J. (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Sensory Archaeology. Taylor and Francis, New York, NY. 21 - 34.

Penfield. W. Rasmussen T. 1950. The Cerebral Cortex of Man. Macmillan, London, UK.

Experimentation occupies a central role in both technological and aesthetic innovation. It demands time, patience, and an intimate understanding of materials and technique and, in return, can offer unique insight into both the agency and individuality of the maker. Yet, it is only the end result, the “achieved object”, that is archaeologically discovered and lauded. The process of reaching that point though – the cycles of sparks of inspiration, self-doubt, frustration, playfulness, and lost motivation – is much less visible. This gap is often because resources were valuable. Yarn could be unspun, unwoven, unraveled, and recrafted multiple times before it reached the maker’s aesthetic or functional standards. Rare survivals, however, of less standardised textiles, such as the Orkney Hood, can offer some insight not only into the process, but also into the creativity of the maker themself.

The oldest complete garment in Scotland, the Orkney Hood, was discovered in the 19th century in a bog near St. Andrew’s Parish in the Orkney Islands of northern Scotland. Radiocarbon dated to the Iron Age, between AD 215 - 615, the hood is crudely sewn and constructed largely from re-used materials. Its small size suggests that it was worn by a child, whose hand may have also been responsible for the uneven stitches joining the pieces together. The Orkney Hood is currently on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh, where I have been lucky enough to see it in person.

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Happy New Year all! I’m between semesters at the moment so I have been working away on some exciting essays (hint: history of secondhand clothes!). While I am finishing that up though, I thought I would put together a list of textile exhibitions opening this year so you all can plan your travel accordingly. Unfortunately, the shows I was able to find a…

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This post is the second in a series on Viking sailcloth. If you missed the first, it can be found here.

Viking sailships dominated the seascapes of Northern Europe from roughly 793 to 1050 AD. Their shallow-keeled, clinker-built vessels, with sails spread wide across the yard, allowed a navigational agility in both vast open oceans and shallow inlets tha…

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This sentence is from Gulatingsloven, a medieval code of law from Western Norway, thought to be written, at least in part, prior to the year 900. Over a thousand years later, in the early 1990s, it sent two researchers on a journey north of the arctic circle to the oldest medieval church in Norway. Jon Bojer Godal and Erik Anderson, from the Norwegian Craftsmen's Registry and the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde respectively,  arrived at Trondenes church with the intention of finding evidence of Viking sailcloth. Clambering into the ancient roof rafters, they carefully pulled down piece after piece of heavy, densely woven cloth, each bit looking as the one before. Until, at last, one fragment contained a unique feature, an eyelet — proof that the cloth was once threaded and stretched taut by a rope tied to the rigging of a sail ship.

Radiocarbon dated to between 1280 and 1420, technically, this fragment is not from what we typically think of as the “Viking Age”, a period considered to have begun with the Viking raid on the monastery on Lindisfarne in 793 and ended in 1066 with the defeat of Harald Hardrada at the Battle of Stamford Bridge. However, both these events occurred in England, very much situating what we think of as the Viking Age inside the “Anglo-gaze”. But Viking activity existed well before this, in descriptions found in Anglo-Saxon annals dating to the 5th and 6th centuries, and it very much existed after this. And most certainly,  their technology and traditions, such as those used to make sailcloth, did not stop after the events of 1066.

It is often said that sailcloth came to Scandinavia much later than the rest of Europe, but if that is actually true or not is debatable. Due to the general unpreservability of cloth, definitive archaeological finds are really limited to the Trondenes fragment. There have been other finds like several pieces of wool tangled in rope at the Oseberg ship burial, but without any defining characteristics, we cannot, in good conscience, say they were sailcloth. It could be equally as likely they belonged to another type of seafaring textile, like a sweater, bedding, or a boat rug.1 

Depictions can help us form a clearer picture of when sails began to be used and what the sails of the time would have actually looked like, but they should be taken with a grain of salt. The earliest renderings of Viking ships with sails come from the Gotlandic Picture stones, a collection of over 400 carved stones from the island of Gotland in Sweden. The earliest stones, from the 5th and 6th century show only basic ships with no rigging for sails, but around the 7th century, depictions of simple square sails start to show up. Both the sail and rigging slowly grow in complexity until the 10th century, likely concurrent with the advancement in sail technology.

Coins with representations of sailships have also been found from Dorestad in the Netherlands and Birka, Sweden (though these are, confusingly, called the Hedeby coins after the place they were made). Thought to be minted around the year 800, they can give us a pretty good idea of the prominence of the sailship already at the beginning of the 7th century.  Many of these coins also had a horned animal on the reverse side, which I am mentioning because these coins were possibly the inspiration for a tiny carved pebble found on a beach near Karlby in Denmark. The stone contained a miniature carving of a sail on one side, and a horned animal on the other.  (This actually hasn’t been dated but was honestly too cute to not include.) So while we can’t completely correlate these representations with the introduction of sails to Scandinavia, it is obvious how quickly sails seemed to take hold and become a prominent part of Viking life.

But regardless of an exact date of introduction, the moment sailcloth became popular in Scandinavia, everything changed. By the 8th century, Vikings could sail faster and more nimbly than any of their counterparts. Because of the ship’s clever, shallow-keel design, they could sail in only three feet of water, allowing them access to places that have never before been sailed to. They dominated the North Atlantic and Europe, becoming the most well traveled traders of their era, reaching Ireland, Greenland, Iceland, Newfoundland, and Byzantium.

The amount of sailcloth needed to be this large of a presence on the seas would have been enough to cover a small town. And, as this was a time before industrialized production, it all would have been handmade. But, before I talk about the production process, first it’s necessary to discuss the material used to make it – wool. Although there is only the Trondenes fragment that can be considered material proof – and a single piece of evidence should not be taken to infer a wider practice – there are many other clues into Viking life that indicate that wool was the preferred material over flax, hemp or nettle.

Wool was a staple material in the Viking Age. It was a well-known currency, called vaðmál (I just removed the paywall from the post I wrote about this and you can read it here!), in Viking Age Iceland and is mentioned frequently in Icelandic sagas and legal texts, like Grágás. However, these references are only to wool in general, with no explicit connection to sailcloth. References to wool are rarer in the Norwegian texts, but despite this, one source may contain a more direct suggestion of wool-as-sailcloth. In the didactic text, Speculum Regale, written around 1250, the unknown author recommends that two or three hundred ells of vaðmál be carried on board a sailing ship, along with needles and thread, in case a sail repair was necessary. It seems unlikely (to me) that a sail otherwise made of a plant-based fiber would be patched with a material that has completely different properties, causing sections of the sail to behave differently in the wind (more on this later).

Wool was so prevalent in the Nordic countries for a simple reason – it could be grown in abundance in the harsh northern climate. In Norway, only about 3% of the land is considered arable, with most of the county being mountainous or covered with trees.  So, while an acre of land does, in theory, yield more flax or hemp than wool, in practice, in most places, it just wasn’t possible. But this isn’t to say that plant-based fibers were never grown in Scandinavia – they were, just not in the quantities needed for sailcloth.

Sheep, though, are able to thrive where crops cannot. The Northern European short-tail breeds of the Viking Age, whose ancestors today include the Vilsau and the Spilsau, were well known for their resilience. They were able to live outdoors year-round, subsisting on only a diet of sparse vegetation. This was an evolutionary adaptation that made them well-suited to surviving in the relatively desolate North Atlantic. Another of their modern ancestors, the North Ronaldsay sheep of the Orkney Islands, take this adaptation even further; they are able to survive on a diet consisting primarily of seaweed washed ashore.2

Another evolutionary trait the sheep developed was, crucially, their double coat. The outer layer, made of long, coarse guard hairs, protected them from the rain and wind, while underneath, the soft, fluffy bottom coat trapped warmth, acting as insulation. Compared to other breeds, the coats of Northern European short-tails are extremely rich in lanolin, a natural wax that serves as a natural barrier to protect from the elements. Being water resistant, the lanolin is not only beneficial for the sheep but also happens to be an ideal trait for the fiber of a seafaring textile.   

The scale of sheep husbandry required to sustain the amount of ships in the Viking fleet would have been immense. It would have had a profound impact on the landscape and precipitated a significant shift in the demand of pastureland. This is reflected in the archaeological record – pollen diagrams from across Scandinavia show a notable decrease in woodlands, alongside a rise in grasses and herbaceous plants during the 7th and 8th centuries. This points to an increase in grazing pressure as trees would have been cut down, expanding fields for sheep. 

This all seems to make a convincing argument toward the use of wool for sails but perhaps the most important question remains: was wool actually an efficient sail material? We know that linen had long been a popular material for sails, used successfully by people like the Egyptians and the Romans as well as in the rest of medieval Europe. But the use of wool for sails was otherwise unknown outside of the Viking world. Through experimental archaeology, the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark recreated full-scale replicas of Viking ships and were able to test this question with real-life experience. Interestingly, their results showed that wool didn’t just sail well, but may have actually been a more effective sea-going material than linen.

As mentioned above, wool is water resistant, meaning that not only are wool sails able to maintain their shape and perform just as well in the rain, but they do not get waterlogged, adding more weight to the ship. Additionally, wool has a natural stretch and elasticity, allowing it to more gracefully cambré into the wind compared with the relative rigidity of a linen sail.  This quality would also mean a wool sail would give itself to a slightly increased surface area during a strong gust, allowing it to harness more wind power, increasing its speed. Wool’s elasticity also makes it more durable – it can stretch where a linen sail might tear (though we do know tears did happen, but they would have been less frequent than with a linen sail).

It seems like wool was likely one of the key factors in the success of the Vikings. But what did it take to actually make a Viking sail? Who was responsible? How was production organized? How long did it take? What kind of tools were used? These are all things I am going to explore in Part 2 of this post, hopefully coming in the next few weeks!

*An important programming note is that over the next couple weeks I am also going to be packing up all my things, putting them in storage and moving to Scotland for a grad program, where I will actually get to start studying textile archaeology in an academic context!! So if Part 2 is less timely than I hope, this is the reason!

Bibliography:

Bazilchuk, Nancy R. “The Sheep That Launched 1000 Ships.” New Scientist, July 24, 2004, 52–53.

Bender Jørgensen, Lise. “The Introduction of Sails to Scandinavia: Raw Materials, Labour and Land.” In N-TAG TEN: Proceedings of the 10th Nordic TAG Conference at Stiklestad, Norway 2009, edited by Ragnhild Berge, Marek E. Jasinski, and Kalle Sognnes, 173–181. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2012.

Bender Jørgensen, Lise. “Seilet som kvinnene spant.” Spor 14, no. 1 (1999): 32–33.

Cooke, Bill, Carol Christiansen, and Lena Hammarlund. “Viking Woollen Square-Sails and Fabric Cover Factor.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 31, no. 2 (2002): 202–210.

Guðmundsdóttir, Aðalheiður. “Gunnarr and the Snake Pit in Medieval Art and Legend.” Speculum 87, no. 4 (2012): 1015–1049.

Hayeur Smith, Michèle. “Dress, Cloth, and the Farmer’s Wife: Textiles from Ø 172 Tatsipataa, Greenland, with Comparative Data from Iceland.” Journal of the North Atlantic 2014, no.6 (2014): 64–81.

Hayeur Smith, Michèle. The Valkyries’ Loom. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2020.

Kooijmans, Jeroen Louwe. Setting Sail in Scandinavia: An Analysis of the Evidence and Arguments. Master’s thesis, University of Southern Denmark, 2018.

Larson, Laurence Marcellus, trans. The King’s Mirror (Speculum Regale–Konungs Skuggsjá). New York: American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1917.

Rabben, Anders M. “Seil, ull og tekstilredskaper — nøkkelfaktorer i vestnorsk vikingtid?” Arkeo, no. 2 (2002): 4–11.

Simensen, Erik, translator and editor. The Older Gulathing Law. Commentary essay by Torstein Jørgensen. Routledge Medieval Translations. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2021.

Østergård, Else. Woven into the Earth: Textile Finds in Norse Greenland. Translated by Kirsten Malmkjær. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2004

If you are just joining or need a brief refresher : Huldremose Woman is a bog body, unearthed from northeastern Jutland by a farmer in the 19th century. She is famous not only for her well preserved remains but also for her clothing – two capes made of animal hide and a skirt and scarf woven of wool. Dating to about 350 bce, her outfit is one of earliest surviving we have from Northern Europe. More recently, in 2007, researchers made an unexpected discovery in the form of small fragments of woven plant fiber still stuck to her skin. Cellulose-based fibers rarely survive in bog environments, thus adding a new layer to our understanding of dress during the Iron Age.

But the costume’s significance doesn’t end with its materials or its antiquity – these garments also offer some of the earliest evidence of botanical dyes in Scandinavia. Studying the application of plant dyes can not only tell us about the chromatic preferences of the day, but how people might have moved through their landscape to forage or cultivate flora, used networks of exchange to gain access to non-native species, and symbolically used color in burial practices. This post is going to explore what we can extract from the study of natural dyes in Iron Age Denmark, using the lens of just one pigment – blue – from the garments of Huldremose Woman.

In 2006, the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Textile Research launched a project called  Textile and Costume from Bronze and Early Iron Ages in Danish Collections. Its aim was to systematically analyze the full corpus of prehistoric textiles recovered from the peat bogs of Denmark, closely examining details like weave structure and fiber preparation. As part of this study, the textiles were tested for traces of natural dyes, many of them for the first time. 

Though most of the textiles had by now been browned by bog tannins, the color analysis found that about 80% showed evidence of erstwhile color. And, realistically, that number is probably even higher – natural dyes have the tendency to degrade over time, meaning it would not be impossible for a dye to have disappeared enough such that it would no longer show up during testing.

I do want to make a disclaimer here that it is unlikely this evidence correlates exactly to when people began dying cloth, which likely was happening much earlier. The high quantities and, as we will see, skill-levels, of dye applications show that women must have been using plants to apply color to fiber for some time before the start of the Iron Age. It is clear, though, that fashion of the time wasn’t drab neutrals like we might imagine – it seems that people were instead donning copious shades of reds, blues, yellows, greens, and purples.

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Originally, I planned on writing one piece discussing the entirety of her garments – but again, so naive! It is…exhilarating (to me!) how complicated a single outfit (or even one garment!) can be when all the individual elements are broken down. We have to consider the sheep that grew the wool and their domestication process over thousands of years from the wild mouflon to the wooly sheep, the shearing, the washing and preparation of the wool, the spinning, the weaving, the dying, and the process of making the tools that made it all possible. There’s so much to cover and I didn’t want to gloss over any of it.  

So, welcome to the first post in a series where I want to really dissect what went into making a garment during the Iron Age in Denmark. But, we’re not starting at the beginning (I went where the research took me – sorry!) but instead with a tool and its accompanying technique that would have been central to the construction of Huldremose Woman’s skirt and scarf– the vertical two beam loom (aka the tubular loom) and tubular weaving. 

During Denmark’s Pre-Roman and Early Roman Iron Age, roughly 500 bce to 400 ce, cloth was typically woven in a 2/2 twill using what we’d call a medium-quality wool. The weave was loose, about 25 threads per inch – a thread count comparable to a modern burlap or a low-grade cheesecloth. If a cutting tool were taken to such a coarsely woven fabric, the structure would quickly destabilize: edges would fray, threads would unravel, and precious yarn would be wasted. Because of this, Iron Age cloth was rarely cut (as far as we know). Instead, women built their garments directly on the loom.

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In this post, I explore why textiles so rarely endure but why sometimes, they do. I’ll focus on the bog, an anomalous environment where there is an absence of the agents of decay, and use the case of Huldremose Woman, a bog body from Denmark, to dissect how an exception to the rules we thought we knew about preservation completely reshaped of understanding of Iron Age clothing, culture and craft.

For much of history, cloth was made of what was locally available – wool, flax, nettle, and even tree bark. These materials were entirely organic, rich in carbon, hydrogen and oxygen – key elements that feed the soil and nourish plants.1 When ancient textiles were deposited into the ground, wrapped around a loved one for burial or discarded into a trash heap after overuse, their biological richness made them especially attractive to microorganisms like bacteria and fungi, who were quick to break them down. Many archaeological sites provide near-perfect conditions for this microbial activity – the soil is full of oxygen, slightly moist, and remains temperate year-round.

Beyond the invisible work of these bacteria, a range of earthly forces also conspire against the long-term survival of timeworn fabric. Subtle movements of the soil – caused by burrowing animals, earthworms or the slow growth of roots– can physically disturb and add new strain on fragile fibers, hastening their deterioration. Water can also have an effect – intermittent cycles of wetting and drying, cause fibers to repeatedly swell and shrink, eventually fracturing and breaking down. If a textile is unearthed – whether by erosion or during an archaeological excavation – sudden exposure to sunlight, heat and oxygen can trigger oxidative decay, weakening the material in mere hours. In some cases, the textile itself also has an effect : ancient dyes or mordants (the substances used to bind color to cloth) can either help to stabilize the fibers or, depending on their chemical makeup, accelerate their breakdown.

When a textile manages to evade its evanescence, it is likely not by chance –it has found sanctuary in an environment hostile to the forces of decay. Certain landscapes like deserts, frozen tundra, wetlands, and salt caves strip away the essentials of life: moisture, warmth, and oxygen. Without these, decomposing microbes are unable to survive, allowing the textiles to persist in a kind of suspended animation for millenia.

Among these rare preservative environments, bogs are especially well-known for their ability to safeguard organic material. After the last Ice Age, as glaciers retreated, low-lying areas of the landscape filled with meltwater, forming shallow, still lakes. Many of these lakes were ombrotrophic – sustained only by rain and snow, rather than flowing streams or groundwater, crucial to replenishing necessary oxygen and nutrients. Around their shores, as plants grew, died, and settled into the water below, their leaves and stems formed dense mats of half-decayed vegetation. Over time, these waters became increasingly oxygen-starved and nutrient-deficient, creating an environment biologically prohibitive to important decomposing microorganisms.

Though these conditions seem uninviting, some plants, such as sphagnum moss, prefer them. Sphagnum plays a definitional role in bog formation, shaping its unique chemistry that make these wetlands so distinctive. The moss gradually acidifies its surroundings, by releasing hydrogen ions into the water below, lowering the pH (pH is simply a measure of hydrogen ions –a lower pH is more acidic and correlates to a larger amount of hydrogen). Over time, layers of dead sphagnum accumulate and compress – forming peat. The older the bog, the deeper the peat and the more acidic the environment becomes. This forms the trifecta for the preservation of organic material – anaerobic, acidic, and nutrient deficient.

A liminal space not only between land and water, but between past and present, bogs are an important resource for our understanding of prehistoric people. They act as an archive, perfectly preserving material that rarely survives in other archaeological contexts. These wetlands have yielded an impressive range of organic discoveries, including ceremonial carriages, still-edible butter, and most famously, bodies.

The raised bogs of northeast Jutland are particularly well-known for their remarkable bog bodies. Many of those you might have heard of have been found here: Tollund Man, the most iconic, known for the “sleeping” position of his body; Grauballe Man, the first bog body to be displayed in a museum; and Huldremose Woman, renowned for being one of the “best-dressed” bog bodies. Upon Huldremose Woman’s disentombment from the bog in May of 1879, during a routine peat-cutting, she was believed to be the body of a recently missing man. The body was examined and the garments removed  –  two hide capes, a wool skirt, and a wool scarf. On inspection, it was revealed this was no modern man, but rather had been a life from the depths of prehistory, from between 350 - 41 bce.

As was common practice for bog bodies in that era, her remains were given a Christian burial in the village churchyard. However, the garments she had been wearing – still damp and heavy with peat – were kept by the local doctor. When he returned home with the clothing, his wife carefully washed them and hung them to dry. Phenomenally, their preservation was so complete that, even after cleaning, the fibers remained in pristine condition. Days later, the find was requested by the National Museum and the outfit was sent on to Copenhagen.

After initial study and conservation by the museum, the body and clothing spent years in storage. But in 2007, researchers re-examined peat samples that had been taken from near the body at the time of discovery and stumbled upon something unexpected – a single, small fragment of thread. Unlike the woolen fibers that had made the scarf and skirt, this one was unmistakably of plant material.

This was highly unexpected – cellulose, the primary component of plant cell walls, doesn’t typically preserve in bogs. The environment is simply too acidic. In contrast, keratin – the protein found in skin, hair, nails and wool clothing – holds up far better. This is why bog bodies are often found so remarkably preserved.

The difference lies in both chemistry and biology. Acidophilic microbes (there are, in fact, some micro-bacteria that are able to survive in bog conditions) thrive on cellulose, while they find keratin far less desirable.  Wool also benefits from hydrophobic surface lipids that help repel water and keep its structural integrity intact, even when buried. Plant fibers, on the other hand, are hydrophilic – they absorb water, swell and become more vulnerable to mechanical stress and microbial invasion in waterlogged environments.

Quite literally following the thread, researchers revisited the body of Huldremose Woman. More small pieces of thread were found in folds of her skin, along her legs and pelvis. They also found indentations on the skin of her chest and shoulders of woven textiles. Most of these were twill impressions, likely made by the scarf (both the skirt and scarf were twill-woven), but others were impressions of tabby weave – clear evidence of a third textile.2

Tabby impressions were also found pressed into the skin of her back. Alongside them were small fragments of plant-based fabric  – tangible traces of a textile that had once clung to her body. This left no doubt: there had been another garment, worn close to the skin, perhaps as an undergarment of some kind. Though the exact plant fiber used has yet to be identified, its presence was extremely significant.

This discovery quietly revolutionized long held assumptions about clothing in Iron Age Scandinavia. For years, scholars believed that all garments from this period were made entirely of wool, and if plant-based textiles were present, they must have been imported or a luxury item. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There is nothing from the Huldremose Woman’s undergarment to suggest this textile couldn’t have been made locally – the weave structure and spin direction are consistent with other pieces of cloth from the area and there is no evidence of foreign dyes. Instead, this hints at what could have been an everyday textile tradition, now lost to time.

Many bog bodies, including the above mentioned, were found without clothing. It has always been assumed that they were buried this way, perhaps intentionally stripped of their clothing. But the Huldremose discovery shifts this assumption – it raises the possibility the bodies may have once, instead, wore garments made of flax, hemp or nettle. In light of this, the body of Tollund Man was examined for traces of plant fibers but none were found – possibly because much of his original torso decayed soon after he was found. This reminds us that bogs are not all-preservers, what once may have been wrapped around his body is now completely lost, erased by the bog.

In the bog, textiles’ connection to landscape endures. As peat postpones the march of time, the dialogue between landscape, body, and cloth is perpetuated, preserved indefinitely.  While most ancient clothing has been reclaimed, recycled into the earth, Huldremose Woman reminds us that even the laws of chemistry can have loopholes. A scrap of fabric can become just as important as an ancient manuscript.

**A short programing note here — there is SO MUCH to say about the clothing of Huldremose Woman (her clothing also changed what we thought about ancient dying!) that it was too much to include in this piece. But I’m going to releasing it as bonus content to paid subscribers in the next couple of weeks — stay tuned!

Bibliography

Gleba, Margarita, and Ulla Mannering. “A Thread to the Past: The Huldremose Woman Revisited.” Archaeological Textiles Newsletter, no. 50 (2010): 32–37.

Mannering, Ulla. “The Huldremose Find: An Early Iron Age Woman with an Exceptional Costume.” Fasciculi Archaeologiae Historicae 23 (2010): 15–24.

Mannering, Ulla, Göran Possnert, Jan Heinemeier, and Margarita Gleba. “Dating Danish Textiles and Skins from Bog Finds by Means of ^14C AMS.” Journal of Archaeological Science 37, no. 2 (2010): 261–268.

Matthiesen, Henning, Richard Brunning, Bethune Carmichael, and Jørgen Hollesen. “Wetland Archaeology and the Impact of Climate Change.” Antiquity 96, no. 390 (2022): 1412–1426.

Peacock, Elizabeth E. “The Biodeterioration of Textile Fibres in Wet Archaeological Contexts with Implications for Conservation Choices.” In Intrecci Vegetali e Fibre Tessili da Ambiente Umido: Analisi Conservazione e Restauro, 46–61.

Solazzo, Caroline, Jolon M. Dyer, Stefan Clerens, Jeff Plowman, Elizabeth E. Peacock, and Matthew J. Collins. “Proteomic Evaluation of the Biodegradation of Wool Fabrics in Experimental Burials.” International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation 80 (2013): 48–59

Remarkable feats of prehistoric engineering, crannogs were homes constructed on timber stilts or stone foundations, dotting the edges of lochs throughout Scotland and Ireland. Building one required immense labor and resources, indicating the wealth and status of the families who lived there. Oakbank Crannog, where the textile was found, is one the best preserve crannogs. Beneath the loch’s depths, conditions were just right for preserving organic materials. During underwater excavations in the 1980s, archaeologists uncovered an extraordinary array of everyday items that rarely survive in the archaeological record – the neck of a lyre, a wooden hunting whistle, and a butter dish with butter still smeared on the inside.

Amid this assemblage, a textile. Though it survives only in small pieces – the largest no bigger than a matchbox – it carries an outsized importance. Radiocarbon dated by archaeologists at the University of Glasgow to between 480 BC and 390 BC, it is one of the oldest pieces of cloth discovered in Britain. Thousands of years buried in the silt of Loch Tay darkened its fibers, making it difficult to determine what the original color might have been. Yet, it is still possible to observe a subtle interplay of hues –  a yellowish red thread is woven into a reddish brown. No plant dyes were detected during laboratory tests, but this absence isn’t conclusive. After 2,500 years in cold water, even the strongest dyes degrade.  It is also possible the yarns were naturally pigmented, taken from sheep with different colored fleeces. At this point in the Iron Age, flocks were still genetically diverse – white wool was only beginning to be selected for, preferred for its ability to take natural dyes.

Beyond its astonishing age, what truly sets the Oakbank Textile apart is how it was made. Its weave structure represents a startlingly early use of a technique previously unseen in the Early Iron Age. To explain — all woven textiles are made of two foundational elements: the warp and the weft. The warp forms the backbone of the fabric, stretched vertically and anchored tightly to the loom The weft, woven horizontally over and under the warp threads, gives the textile its shape, density and feel. The simplest form, known as plain weave or tabby, follows a basic rhythm: over one warp thread, under the next – row after row, alternating to create a tight, balanced fabric.

Weave structure holds a surprising amount of information. It can reveal clues about a textiles origin – whether it was made in the local style or arrived from elsewhere, which in turn has implications for trade, cultural exchange and regional identity. It also sheds light on the tools and techniques available to weavers at the time and what choices women made to produce cloth. Looms were typically made of wood and don’t preserve well, so the cloth itself is often the only surviving evidence of the implements that were necessary for its production. 

A step up in complexity from plain weave is twill, formed when the weft thread passes over a set number of warp threads and then under another set. In 3/1 twill, for example – the structure used to weave denim – the weft passes under 3 warp threads, then over one. Each row shifts the pattern over by one thread creating a diagonal line in the fabric.  This technique gives cloth a unique combination of strength, flexibility and drape, allowing it to move with the body while holding up to daily wear, making it perfect for garments that are both durable and comfortable.

Twill weaving had been known since the Bronze Age, but during the Iron Age it overtook the simpler plain weave to become the dominant textile structure across much of Europe—likely because of  its suitability for clothing. One of the richest textile assemblages we have from this time comes from the Hallstatt culture of Austria, dating from 1000 to roughly 400 BCE. Of the 117 pieces of cloth found, two-thirds are woven in twill. Closer to the Oakbank site, at an Iron Age cemetery in East Yorkshire, textiles preserved on brooches and other metal objects show a clear preference for twill structures. Similar patterns emerge at sites like Kirkburn, where twill cloth was recovered beneath a suit of chainmail, and Wetwang Slack, where mineralized fabric remnants display the same diagonal weaves.

Though twill weaves were clearly very popular during the Iron Age, all the above examples were woven in 2/2 twill. The Oakbank textile, however, was woven in 2/1 twill – making it the  earliest known example of this woven structure. At first glance, the difference between these two structures might appear negligible, but in practice, a 2/1 twill demands a far higher level of control and precision of the looms that were in use at the time. Complications dealing with weight distribution of loom weights, tie-up and heddles make this weave far less common. To put it into perspective, the earliest known example of 2/1 twill in Denmark doesn’t appear until the 10th century – over a thousand years later.

The handiwork is tight, deliberate and expertly made, clearly the work of a skilled and practiced hand. One of the smaller fragments even shows a folded edge, possibly a hem, offering an intimate clue that this textile may once have been worn. But why did someone go through the extra effort to produce such exquisite cloth? Was this the local style in the crannog or was this garment something someone treasured? Unfortunately, much about this piece of cloth remains unknowable. However, excavations at Oakbank Crannog are still ongoing, so the possibility remains that another textile might be discovered.

The Oakbank textile has just gone on view at the Scottish Crannog Centre, not far from where it was originally discovered. That it survived at all is remarkable, that it has since undergone conservation to make public display possible is just as astonishing. Prehistoric textiles almost never make it into museum settings; their fragility and delicate materials usually keep them confined to storage. But the Oakbank textile remains a rare exception: a fragment of Iron Age life, pulled from the depths and now carefully preserved on the surface, offering us a fleeting, tangible connection to the hands that made it.

Bibliography :

Barber, E. J. W. Prehistoric Textiles. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.

"Fragments of Iron Age Textile Found in Loch Go on Show for First Time." MSN, April 29, 2025. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/fragments-of-iron-age-textile-found-in-loch-go-on-show-for-first-time/ar-AA1DrEZx?ocid=StaticFallback.

Harris, Susanna, Frances Houston and Jason Oliver. “Textile from the Crannog: analyses and weave experiment of a 2/1 twill weave from Oakbank, Scotland, 400 BCE.” Archaeological Textile Review No. 64 (2022): 16-27

Jay, Mandy, B.T Fuller, Michael P Richards, Christopher J Knüsel, and Sarah S King. “Iron Age Breastfeeding Practices in Britain: Isotopic Evidence from Wetwang Slack, East Yorkshire.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 136, no. 3 (2008): 327–37. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20815.

Walton, Penelope. “Dyes and Wools in Iron Age Textiles from Norway and Denmark.” Journal of Danish Archaeology vol. 7 (1988): 144-158

Østergård, Else. Woven into the Earth: Textile Finds in Norse Greenland. Translated by Kirsten Malmkjær. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2004

Photos of the Oakbank Textile were taken from : Harris, Susanna, Frances Houston and Jason Oliver. “Textile from the Crannog: analyses and weave experiment of a 2/1 twill weave from Oakbank, Scotland, 400 BCE.” Archaeological Textile Review No. 64 (2022): 16-27

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Modern currency is an abstraction. A dollar bill, a blend of cotton and linen (yes, technically a textile!) holds meaning only because we collectively continue to assign it value. In contrast, in the medieval North Atlantic, money was not merely symbolic – it had practical worth. It could be traded, taxed or tailored. Most notably, it brought women’s work to the heart of the economy with cloth currency being produced at nearly every farmstead in Iceland. Textiles have served as currency in other parts of the world across time, such as woven raffia squares in Central Africa or woolen cloth in Frisia – but nowhere did fabric become as widespread, as systematized or as economically entrenched as it did in Iceland.

During the Viking Age and for many centuries following , Iceland’s economy operated as a carefully constructed barter system where goods held fixed values relative to one another. This structured and deliberate approach was essential to keep trade fair and maintain peace within the community. Everything had its price: grain, livestock, wool cloth—all calibrated against each other. A healthy cow, for instance, was worth exactly 30 kilograms of butter. This system, known as the commodity-money system, was not unique to Iceland but was practiced across the North Atlantic and countless other societies throughout history.

Unlike modern economies, where money is a theoretical concept with no intrinsic value, the commodity-money system was grounded in the tangible. Wealth wasn’t symbolic—it was edible, wearable, or productive. This model thrived in places that had an unpredictable supply of resources and self-sufficient households capable of producing surplus goods. In times of hardship—whether due to famine, harsh winters, or conflict—storing wealth in essential goods like food, livestock, or textiles provided security.  Who would trade their grain or butter for useless coinage in a time of scarcity? 

Historians and economists often overemphasize the importance of silver and coins when studying Viking Age economies – largely because these materials survive so well in the archaeological record. Coin hoards provide easily recognizable evidence of trade, whereas the bones of a cow or the remnants of a woolen dress – though they were just as vital to the economy – are far less obvious as forms of currency. While silver and coins did circulate in Iceland during this time, they were mainly used for paying legal fines or acquiring imported goods, whereas commodities were used more often for domestic trade.

By the 11th century, as Viking raids wanned, the flow of silver into Iceland began to dry up. Meanwhile, the population was growing, trade was picking up and the economy was becoming increasingly active. Without a domestic source of the metal, the existing silver supply was no longer sufficient to support the expanding foreign needs of the population. The island needed something more reliable. This pressure sparked a shift toward a more sustainable medium of exchange: cloth.

Homemade woolen cloth, known as vaðmál, quickly rose to fill the gap. The name comes from the Old Norse roots ‘vað’ (“stuff” or “cloth”) and ‘mal’ (meaning “ measure”) – literally “cloth measured to a standard.” Iceland’s stable pastoral economy made wool one of the most abundant resources on the island and women had been weaving it prolifically since the settlement period – producing it for clothing, bedclothes, tents, and even ship sails. Vaðmál had all the qualities of an ideal currency: it was durable, portable, resistant to spoilage, recoverable after shipwrecks and in high demand abroad. While woolen cloth was traded elsewhere in Scandinavia – in Norway, for example, legal texts mention cloth payments for shipbuilding, church consecrations, and legal compensations – nowhere did it come to be used as ubiquitously as in Iceland. 

In theory, the value of vaðmál was measured against silver—one ounce of homespun was to be exchangeable for one ounce of silver. The primary unit of measure for cloth was the ell, a unit based on the length of a grown man’s forearm, from fingertip to elbow. However, trade in small fragments of fabric wasn’t exactly ideal when it comes to actually sewing them to make a tunic. To solve this, a standardized unit called the "law ounce" was introduced: a piece of cloth measuring 6 ells in length and 2 ells in width, a measure that mirrored that found in Norway.

Because the ell was based on the length of a human arm, measurements could vary considerably depending on the individual. Over time, however, vaðmál became standardized. To be considered legal currency, it had to meet strict quality requirements. Woven in a 2/2 twill, it must have a thread density ranging from 4 to 14 warp threads per inch. Coarser weaves, with fewer threads, were suitable for legal payments, while finer, denser fabrics were reserved for more formal obligations, such as paying tithes to the church.

The exact timeline of this standardization remains somewhat unclear. Written records first mention these regulations in Grágás, Iceland’s law code, in 1117 –  by which time the Alþingi, Iceland’s legislative assembly, had already set fixed prices for nearly all goods in units of vaðmál, demonstrating its prevalence. To ensure consistency, standards of measurements were marked on the walls of various public spaces. Still, it’s uncertain whether these distinctions in cloth quality were already in place during the Viking Age, when textiles first began functioning as currency, or if they were formalized later in the medieval period, as vaðmál became increasingly central to the medieval economy.

The essential role of textiles in medieval Iceland provides fascinating insights into the economic and social significance of women on the island. Textile production was decentralized, taking place on farms across the entire socioeconomic spectrum – from elite estates to more humble homesteads—essentially wherever wool and female labor were present. Homes around Iceland became bustling centers of economic activity. While men were tasked with sheep husbandry, women were responsible for the entire textile production process. They carded, washed, spun, and wove the wool into fabric using warp-weighted looms. This division of labor wasn’t just functional; it may reflect the unique challenges brought on by Iceland's harsh environment, where survival and economic stability depended on men and women being close collaborators.

 Around the year 1000, a significant shift took place in how weaving was organized. Production moved from small, separate outbuildings into the heart of main house. The change was likely more than just a matter of convenience — one theory suggests it allowed men to more closely oversee the production of cloth. If this theory holds, it could shed light on when vaðmál began to gain a greater economic significance.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, cloth gradually faded from its role as a currency and trade commodity but the legacy it left is far more than a story of fabric – it’s a powerful narrative that helped to save an economy and build national wealth, where women were the driving force. Despite the many unanswered questions—How did the economic pressures of textile production influence marriages and family structures? What happened to a man's status if his wife passed away? How were weaving structures beyond 2/2 twill preserved after vaðmál faded?—one thing is undeniable: the model of economic empowerment rooted in textiles still reverberates today.  Iceland stands as a global leader in gender equality, consistently ranking among the best in the world. This is no coincidence. It is a direct reflection of the enduring legacy of the women whose labor and resilience once wove the very fabric of the nation.

Bibliography:

Darish, Patrica. “Dressing for the Next Life: Raffia Production and the Use Among the Cuba of Zaire.” In Cloth and the Human Experience, ed. Annette B.Weiner & Jane Schneider, 117-140. Washington: Smithsonian Institute Press, 1989.

Jochens, Jenny. Women in Old Norse Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.

Skre, Dagfinn. “Commodity Money, Silver and Coinage in Viking-Age Scandinavia.” In Silver Economies, Monetisation and Society in Scandinavia AD 800-1100, ed. Graham-Campbell, Sindbæk, & Williams, 67–92. Denmark: Aarhus University Press 2011.

Smith, Michèle Hayeur. “Dress, Cloth, and the Farmer’s Wife: Textiles from Ø 172 Tatsipataa, Greenland, with Comparative Data from Iceland.” Journal of the North Atlantic 2014, no.6 (2014): 64–81.

Hayeur Smith, Michéle. “Weaving Wealth: Cloth and Trade in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland.” In Textiles and the Medieval Economy: Production, Trade, and Consumption of Textiles, 8th - 16th Centuries, ed. Angela Ling Huang & Carsten Jahnke, United Kingdom, Oxbow Books, 2015. 23-40.

Hayeur Smith, Michéle. “Vaðmal and Cloth Currency in Viking and Medieval Iceland.” In Silver, Butter, Cloth: Monetary and Social Economies in the Viking Age, ed. Jane Kershaw and Gareth Williams, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. 251 - 277.

Hayeur Smith, Michèle. The Valkyries’ Loom. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2020.

When you hear the word "Neanderthal," what comes to mind? Lumbering, simple minded brutes, sitting and scratching at themselves for lack of anything productive to do? Or maybe you, like me, think of this clip from the BBC. For decades, our understanding of Neanderthals as unsophisticated hunter-gathers has been shaped largely by the artifacts that happe…

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In 874, thousands of Norse men and women set sail for Iceland, escaping the rule of Norwegian King Harald Fairhair. As they began their new lives, they constructed farmsteads with the essential structures for survival, including hay barns and blacksmith workshops.  But among these outbuildings, archaeologists found something unusual. At nearly every exc…

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