Textile-impressed Pottery Revisited: Its Usefulness for Studying Bronze Age Textile Craft in Estonia

Abstract

Although textile craft is a socially complex and economically significant phenomenon, little is known about textile techniques in the Bronze Age of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, including Estonia. No textile or cloth remains dated to the Bronze Age, i.e. between 1800 and 500 BC in the Estonian context, have been found so far. Only indirect evidence such as possible textile tools and impressions on pottery can be used in the study of textile-making. The aim of the present study is to review the available evidence regarding Bronze Age pottery with patterns commonly described as made with textiles, and to systematise it. As a result, it is suggested that the evidence based on these impressions is even more limited than thought so far. Few finds clearly indicate the use of textiles. Regular patterns consisting of variously-shaped concavities on the vessels’ walls may have been made also with other items, for example by rolling fir cones over the surface of a freshly-modelled pot.