Textile activities during the 3rd and 2nd millennium cal BC in the Northeast of the Iberian Peninsula: spinning instruments

Abstract

This study analyses a set of artefacts from Chalcolithic and Early and Middle Bronze Age contexts in the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula that may have been involved in textile activities, specifically spinning. These are clay spindle whorls and perforated stone discs whose morphometric, chronological and contextual data are compared with parallels from the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, as well as with existing information on textile activities such as weaving, basketry and representations of clothing in Megalithic art. The results indicate the use of clay spindle whorls for spinning vegetable fibres from the end of the Early Chalcolithic, although it is from the Late Chalcolithic/Bell Beaker period when they acquire greater prominence, perhaps linked to a greater intensification and technical improvement of textile production. During the Early and Middle Bronze Age, spindle whorls were absent, and the only ones present were perforated stone discs, although they could hardly have fulfilled this function. From the Late Bronze Age onwards, clay spindle whorls are again documented, but their morphology, completely different from the previous ones, allows us to relate them to a greater use of wool as a textile fibre.