Is Cross‐Section Shape a Distinct Feature in Plant Fibre Identification?

Abstract

Correct identification of textile fibres is an important issue in archaeology because the use of different materials can yield crucial information about the society that produced the textiles. Textiles made of plant and animal fibres can normally be easily distinguished, but to distinguish between different types of plant fibres, in particular different types of bast fibres, is difficult. Some years back it was shown that the features fibre diameter, lumen diameter, dislocation (nodes), and cross markings cannot be used on their own to distinguish between the typical bast fibres used for textiles in ancient Europe: flax, hemp, and nettle. Particularly not when only a few fibres are available for an examination so that statistical analysis is not possible, as is often the case in archaeology. The last two characterization features typically used to distinguish between bast fibres are cross‐section shape and lumen shape. In this paper, we present a study of retted and unretted fibres (in the stem) of flax, nettle, and hemp, and show that also cross‐section shape and lumen shape cannot be used as distinguishing features on their own.

Wide-angle X-ray scattering studies on contemporary and ancient bast fibres used in textiles – ultrastructural studies on stinging nettle

“…The problems inherent to microscopy method-based identification of bast fibres have been discussed widely: see Suomela et al 2018Suomela et al , 2020Haugan and Holst, 2014;Lukesova and Holst 2020. There are In this study, we were not able to detect calcium oxalate crystals in any of the studied samples using PLM. Utilizing the absence or presence of calcium oxalate crystals in the fibre surrounding tissues as a conforming identification feature is also challenging, since if the studied fibres are old or have been thoroughly processed it is highly likely that the crystal-containing tissues may no longer be present.…”

Identifying Late Iron Age textile plant fibre materials with microscopy and X-ray methods — a study on finds from Ravattula Ristimäki (Kaarina, Finland)

“…Using cross-sectional characteristics as an identification tool has recently been criticised by Lukešová and Holst (2020). They, with good cause, point out that due to natural variations, different lumen sizes and cross-sectional shapes occur within species.…”

“…Several researchers have helped advance the methodology for identifying bast fibres. An article by Bergfjord and Holst (2010) contributed greatly to the modern development of identification methods for bast fibres, and work has been further carried out by various researchers (e.g., Suomela et al 2018Suomela et al , 2020Haugan and Holst 2013;Lukešová et al 2017;Lukešová and Holst 2020;Rast-Eicher 2016;Skoglund et al 2019Skoglund et al , 2020Waudby 2017;Paterson et al 2017). Reliable results demand the combining of different methods to best observe the various aspects of fibre morphology.…”

“…Thus far, the best results have been obtained by combining techniques that make use of transmitted light microscopy (TLM). The methods are based on subjective visual analysis, though, with researchers studying blurred pictures in the hope of identifying fibre fragments (Lukešová and Holst 2020;Suomela et al 2020). The other problem involves degraded samples, where the fibres have decayed either by oxidation or by microbial activity.…”

Wide-angle X-ray Scattering studies on contemporary and ancient bast fibres used in textiles – ultrastructural studies on stinging nettle

“…Problems of microscopy method-based identi cation of bast bres are discussed widely, see Suomela et al 2018Suomela et al , 2020Haugan and Holst, 2014;Lukesova and Holst 2020. There are subjectivity issues in interpretation of longitudinal, cross-sectional as well as the modi ed Herzog test images.…”