Summary of Kassia St. Clair's The Golden Thread

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The first humans to live in Georgia were hunters who made tools and wore pendants. They were also efficient weavers, and they created fibers from plants. This undercuts long-held assumptions about our early ancestors and gives us a fuller, richer picture of their lives.

#2 The Dzudzuana cave contains the oldest traces of fiber arts in the world, dating from 32,000 years ago. The cave’s inhabitants were skilled at spinning and weaving bast fibers, which they used to make thread to sew together animal hides for clothing.

#3 Clothing is thought by anthropologists to serve two important functions in human society. The first is display. But humans are capable of visually distinguishing themselves without clothes, using everything from tattoos, to jewellery, to body piercings and adaptations.

#4 Clothing was one of the many skills that humans needed to thrive in diverse regions. From the Bast to the Worsted, humans saw the advantages of woven fabric, and began creating it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822536562

IRB Media

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Insights on Kassia St. Clair's The Golden Thread

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The first humans to live in Georgia were hunters who made tools and wore pendants. They were also efficient weavers, and they created fibers from plants. This undercuts long-held assumptions about our early ancestors and gives us a fuller, richer picture of their lives.

#2

The Dzudzuana cave contains the oldest traces of fiber arts in the world, dating from 32,000 years ago. The cave’s inhabitants were skilled at spinning and weaving bast fibers, which they used to make thread to sew together animal hides for clothing.

#3

Clothing is thought by anthropologists to serve two important functions in human society. The first is display. But humans are capable of visually distinguishing themselves without clothes, using everything from tattoos, to jewellery, to body piercings and adaptations.

#4

Clothing was one of the many skills that humans needed to thrive in diverse regions. From the Bast to the Worsted, humans saw the advantages of woven fabric, and began creating it.

#5

The threads found at Dzudzuana were made from flax, a tall, willowy annual that is still used to make linen. Its stem is strewn with spear-shaped leaves and, when it flowers, an abundance of blooms that are often pink or purple but more often periwinkle blue.

#6

The earliest known man-made fibers were made using flax, rather than wool. They were difficult to extract and work with, but they had advantages: they were long-staple fibers and better for those in hotter climates.

#7

Archaeology has a bias against fabric, as it is typically perishable and only rarely leaves traces that can be found centuries later. However, there are exceptions to this rule, and fabrics can be preserved thanks to an unusual climate.

#8

The warp-weighted loom was used to make textiles at Neolithic and Bronze Age sites all over Europe and Asia