Research results of the past 20 years have made it possible to recognise traditional manufacturing techniques of textile production from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, representative of the significance of textile products in prehistoric Central Europe. This significance displays a degree of appreciation which goes beyond the ideas we would associate with textiles from a modern standpoint. Within the scope of a large exhibition on 4000 years of pile-dwellings, on display in Baden-Württemberg from 16.04 to 9.10.2016 (www.pfahlbauten2016.de), a key textile find from Pfäffikon-Irgenhausen (CH) has been analysed and reconstructed afresh. The patterned textile fragment has been radiocarbon-dated to the Early Bronze Age. It occupies a key position in the textile production between the Neolithic and the Early Iron Age. While correctly identified as brocade in research of the 1930s, more recent publications arrived at erroneous identifications of the technique employed in the manufacture of this piece of fabric. New analyses and a reconstruction of the piece of fabric attest to a combination of weaving techniques which demonstrate the immense significance of textile manufacturing traditions in prehistoric textiles; manufacturing traditions, which did not reduce the textile to a mere carrier of decoration, but which instead recognised appearance and manufacturing technique as a unity.

Author - Dr. Banck-Burgess, Johanna, Landesamt für Denkmalpflege, Esslingen, Germany (Presenting author)

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