Infrared Examination of Fiber and Particulate Residues from Archaeological Textiles

Revealing Clues from Textile Particulate through Microscopy, Infrared Spectroscopy, and X-ray Microanalysis

“…Methods for development of comparative materials, including dyeing with representative dye plants and pigment painting are reported elsewhere (Thompson 2000;Thompson and Jakes 2002;Baldia 2003;Jakes et al 2007). Rabbit hair {Lagomorpha order) and milkweed fiber [Asclepias syriaca L.) were used as models of animal and plant fibers, bedstraw (Galium species) and sumac (Rhus species) as dye-plant examples Oakes and Ericksen 2001), and iron oxide as an example of ocher pigment.…”

“…Although specific types of lignin were found to be useful in separating groups of fibers from woody and herbaceous species of plants in the Comparative Plant Fiber Collection Oakes, Baldia, Thompson 2007), no lignins were found in the charred Seip materials. While this result was not unexpected, the potential usefulness of differences in lignin types must be considered in other plant fiber textiles.…”

“…As conditions change, sulfate, acetate, or carbonate compounds are formed. Green encrustations on a mineralized fiber from an Etowah, Georgia site were identified as similar to malachite, while green stains on a Seip textile appeared to be similar to verdigris (Jakes et al 2007). …”

“…Evidence for both dyes and pigments are present in the Seip textiles. Jakes, Baldia, and Thompson (2007) discuss the infrared spectra of charred, mineralized, dyed, and pigmented comparative plant and animal fibers; they compared these to the infrared spectra of fiber samples of textiles from the Seip Mound Group and those from Etowah Mound, a Mississippian period site in Georgia. These spectra were obtained using a Perkin Elmer Spectrum 2000 Fourier Transform Infrared spectrometer, equipped with a deuterated triglycine sulfate detector (64 scans, 4000-400 centimeter"', resolution of 4 centimeter"', baseline corrected).…”

“…While Jakes et al (2007) report some foundationat work on the infrared spectra of comparative materials and Baldia et al (2008) report some optical microscopy results in examination of fibers from Seip textiles #4,10, 31, 30 and 32, this article presents some new IR spectra (Seip #5,14, and 37), summarizes the results of microscopic examination of particulate materials from Seip textiles, and provides an exploration ofthe implications of the findings ofthe accumulated body of analytical work for the inference of culture and history of the prehistoric people who created and used the textiles. This article reports on the exploration ofthe types of information available from microscopic examination ofthe particulate from degraded, charred, or mineralized archaeological textiles complemented by elemental and chemical compositional analysis.…”