Rope making .40,000 years ago

[Toddy]

I was wondering….there's a spinning technique where long fibres that still contain some of the plant pectins, like flax, and hemp, are gently rolled, and new stretches of the long fibres are just dampened at the ends and lightly twisted into the roving to hold into a continuous coil. This allows continuous spinning of long lengths of spun cordage. In linen weaving the spinning can be incredibly finely done from such a technique, and it's known world wide; from Japan to Egypt, from South America to Africa.
It's a known spinning technique though and only folks like me, and I'm by no means unique, there are a lot of us who specialise in both traditional textile crafts and ethnobotany, who cross those bits of knowledge with those from rope making.

If the continuous roving was used, then four lightly twisted continuous rovings could be fed through those holes and plyed up….but I cannot see the technique working unless the rovings were actually twin ply-ed first. Otherwise they'd unspin or you'd simply end up with a single thick rope of what would effectively be singles and not plyed.

There is no counter twist on that mammoth ivory tool, no rope hooks that twist the fibres before hand.

I actually wonder if it's more something for controlling rope rather than making rope. Like the cleats that we use to stop a rope sliding.
Y'have to wonder though, what on earth were they tieing up with it ? Landlocked in Siberia ? holding down skins on the roof ?

Interesting puzzle, no ?

M

p.s. Links as I find them. My books aren't all online unfortunately.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id...tian spinning, from a height, -statue&f=false

 

[Janne]

Todays Austria. Mountainous.
But a Siberian climate. No hemp. No flax. Everything is low growing, trees too.


Or one way to connect 4 ropes (hide or from tendons) together to one anchor? Or a way to hoist things up?

 

[Toddy]

The wild grasses of that type of environment make beautiful 2ply cordages though….like the ones the Inca make even today to make their rope bridges.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_ob...e_is_made_entirely_of_grass_and_woven_by.html

I've made good cordage just using our sweetgrass, but everything from the crocus leaves to the iris stems make good cordage too.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

The carved spiral combs are there for a reason. Why? Ivory is hard so the choice means durability in use.
Hole size. Spacing. Why?
I can't imagine the paleo tool which could make such fine divisions of similar size and shape.
The carver had tremendous hand/eye coordination and control.

I have lots of carving tools. I can't imagine which one to select to replicate those combs.
Very small pointed biface in some sort of handle.

 

[Janne]

Flint? Sharpened tooth? Maybe from a Beaver or another rodent type animal?
(Enamel is much, much harder than Dentine. ivory is Dentine)

( just brain storming for you cordage experts to jiggle your brains on)

 

[Toddy]

Flint, chert, obsidian; they all carve ivory, as does a bow drill spindle tipped with a squirrel's incisor.

M

 

[Robson Valley]

I'll go with flint. That would have been just too valuable to travel/habitate without it.

Using North American flint and obsidian as examples, trace impurity analysis
of origin shows easily that those stones were traded all over the continent
in well established trade routes. Europe could not have been any different.

Should try to swing by the butcher shop and ask about femur bone.
That's about as big as I can get when compared with the ivory artifact.

Question making cordage: do you suppose that you MUST use all 4 holes?
What are the implications in using 3 holes?

 

[Toddy]

Good point, because a triple stranded rope is well seated, four doesn't do quite so tidily. You end up fighting to keep it snug into the centre space of the four strands, while the three just 'fits', iimmc.
Not saying it can't be done, it definitely can, witness the split ply braiding of the arabs for instance, but on the whole, three is more the usual.

M

 

[Janne]

The ends are not intact so we do not know exactly how they looked like.
I have been thinking - what of this thing was tied to a string/ leather thong, then quickly spun around in the air?
Maybe it was a music instrument, or a tool to attract animals?
Again, just throwing out iseas!

 

[Robson Valley]

Hummingbird Point, aka Keith, over in the Paleo Planet forums, says the rope falls apart when the tension comes off.
Those comb parts must be important or they would not have been so carefully carved for each hole.
Going to be an interesting carving project for me.

From time to time, I refresh my splicing skills with 3-strand, make handles and stuff.
Hard to imagine how awkward that could be with 4 strands.

The Australian aborigines have a communication device swung through the air on the end of a 6' cord.
Loud, low frequency buzzing sound. I think it must flap/spin. I have one hanging on my study wall.

 

[Janne]

Follow the link below for a better pic of that tool. The elaborate carved flutes are on both sides of the holes, some clock eise, some counterclock wise.
Rope making tool? I do not think so. Have a look!

http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge3/image_4047_2e-Rope-Making-Tool.jpg

Not that the flutes on one side are mirrorred on the other side, exactly the same way, for each hole.

Also if it was a tool you used with a certain muscular force, you would like to hold it in both hands, so a handle on bot sides and not only one.

 

[Robson Valley]

Thanks. The spirals appear reversed for one hole then 2 the same then the broken 4th hole might not(?) have spirals at all?
Possibly #4 was a point of attachment to something else?

I hope that they look into the spirals for what could be trapped fragments of plant or animal matter.
Brushing this artifact might destroy a source of evidence.

 

[Toddy]

I wonder if those beautifully carved grooves are actually functional or are simply a beautiful way to stop a crisp edge tearing up cordage. I have a new set of tablets for braid weaving, and they're shredding my yarn. I need to undo the warps and sand or shape the edges of the holes to take away the very straight edges.

M

 

[John Fenna]

I have condensed years of experience into one phrase to describe the interpretation of archaeological finds ...
"If you have not got the right callouses you do not know how to use it or how it was used... it is a Ritual Object"

 

[Janne]

According to Daily Mail, the intellectual publication extraordinaire, Hemp / Cannabis was first used around 10 000 years ago for its fiber, and a bit later for its other beneficial/ recreational use.

So IF this is a rope making implement, which I doubt, they must have used some other fibrous plant.

 

[Seagull]

The image http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlar...aking-Tool.jpg, referred by Janne, has come to my mind very often. There was always something about it that I never could quite grasp, always on the tip of my tongue, as it were.
Today I was using a 5 inch long serving stick, a three holed gadget that is used mainly for binding the dead end of wires that I spliced. I use either a very strong, 7 size bonded nylon, or a single strand of 1x7 annealed seizing wire, to do the job.
Rather than thread the chosen material through each of the holes, I use just one of them and can get all the tension I need, simply by taking the lead at 90 degrees and just resting resting my thumb adds all the extra tension neccessary.
The stick (some sort of Rose wood) has developed markings around each hole, almost exactly as the image shows.
But, here's the thing, making just such an end seizing this morning, I had a gobsmacking realisation that this one-handed technique, would have been ideal for very tightly securing something at the end of a thin stick.

Trouble is, of course, that modern materials are just that and, I think the only thing anywhere near comparable for the time slot, would've been sinew of some sort.

Ceeg

 

[Toddy]

Do you know Patrick McGlinchey, Ceeg ?
I think the two of you could explain an awful lot

M

 

[Seagull]

Have met him a couple of times at the WG ( going back a bit).....if time had allowed ,I could've easily spent the next week or five , just listening and learning
Ceeg

 

[Toddy]

Have you seen his kayak ? and the leatherwork and ropes he's made ?
Absolutely brilliant
I saw it and realised that suddenly I could see all those fragments we find, as the tools of incredibly capable and able people.

He's good people

M