Posted on 08/31/2013 7:14:13 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A boat neck sweater made of warm wool and woven in diamond twill was a dominating fashion trend among reindeer hunters 1,700 years ago, according to researchers who have investigated an extremely well preserved Iron Age tunic found two years ago under melting snow in Norway...
Found in an hunting area on the Norwegian Lendbreen glacier at 6,560 feet above the sea level, the well-preserved tunic was made between 230 and 390 A.D., according to radiocarbon dating...
Examinations with a scanning electron microscope and light microscopy revealed that two different fabrics, made of lamb's wool or wool from adult sheep, are present in the tunic.
...the fabric was deliberately and evenly mottled, the effect obtained using two light and two dark brown alternating wool threads.
Relatively short and constructed from a simple cut, the greenish-brown tunic would have fitted a slender man about 5 feet, 9 inches tall. It featured a boat neck, had no buttons or fastenings, but was simply drawn over the head like a sweater.
The cut and size of the tunic closely resembles that of a garment excavated more than 150 years ago in a bog at Thorsbjerg, Schleswig-Holsten. Now in the Archaeological Museum in Schleswig, Germany, it was found in an early first millennium weapon deposit offering, and presumably had belonged to an officer...
The sweater-like tunic showed hard wear and tear and had been mended with two patches...
According to the researchers, it is quite possible that the tunic was originally sleeveless, and that the sleeves were added at the time of the second repair...
The tunic is not the only textile item recovered from the Norwegian ice patches.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.discovery.com ...
I think it says Woolrichsen
Three little kittens lost their mittens and they began to cry.
It took a lot of labor to grow the sheep, shear it, clean and card the wool, spin it, and then ( finally) knit it up.
Snow free pass?
Aw? You mean there might have been global warming even then?
Probably discarded during a period of global warming. That’s why This type of heavy wool garment is called a sweater.
Not knitted. Knitting was invented only about a thousand years ago.
Surprising, because knitting requires infinitely infrastructure than the looms and such of weaving, so more suitable to nomads, one would think.
Good & helpful information; didn’t know that about them. Thanks.
Interesting.
I hadn’t thought about that at all.
Are there carnivores in Norway?
I would guess wolves, but I can’t recall ever hearing about bears or big cats in Scandinavia.
Native South Americans have simple, portable looms that produced a majority of their garments.
However, it is a little surprising that knitting didn’t come along sooner. Maybe the concept of weaving is just overwhelmingly intuitively superior. On the other hand, perhaps it was something to do with the flexibility of yarns.
Possible scenario. Hunter had been out in the rain/crossed a river/whatever, and laid garment out to dry. During night camping, major snow storm struck. Had to go home without shirt, got killed, who knows. Questions: Was garment laid out or crumpled (could have fallen off load or pack), was it on ground/rock or on top of snow? This would add useful information for conjecture.
Norway’s glaciers were apparently much smaller at the time of this sweater (between 230 and 390 A.D., with 400 AD roughly marking the end of the Roman Warm Period). See the graph in this paper on Norway’s glaciers (http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.jp/2013/06/new-paper-finds-norway-glaciers-much.html).
So Zeestephen’s comment (”...this migration path had to be snow free for decades, or even centuries, before the sweater was left there”) would fit.
At least they didn’t say 230 and 390 CE.
Yes, and I am thankful for that.
But they did say:
“Currently, approximately 50 fragments await dating and analysis and, as global warming progresses, more can be expected.
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