Rags to Riches: An Archaeological Study of Textiles and Gender in Iceland, AD 874 -1800.

Brown University, Providence RI

Investigators

Abstract

This project will conduct a three-year study exploring gender, textiles and society in Iceland from the Viking Age (ca. 874-1050) until the early 19th century, using museum collections from 12 archaeological sites from across Iceland. Until ca. 1750, textiles and their production were central to the operation of the Icelandic economy. While raising, herding, and shearing sheep were tasks primarily undertaken by men, the transformation of sheared wool to yarn, cloth, and finished products was women's work. It is not inappropriate to suggest that the products of their labor formed the basis on which this society ran. Woolen textiles were legal currency in medieval and post-medieval Iceland, against which all other commodities were valued and traded. Debts, taxes, tithes and foreign exchanges were paid in woolen cloth. Detailed laws regulated the quality and construction of different types of woolen cloth for use in different types of exchange or for exchange at different rates, but it was women working together who ensured that quality, regulated their own household?s production, and created its durable wealth. Women were also in charge of transforming cloth into clothing and, through that process, produced the most essential items of daily life - clothing, blankets, tents, and other utilitarian items - that buffered Icelanders against a changing climate and often-severe conditions during the Little Ice Age. In the process, they also established styles used to demonstrate households' status vis-à-vis others; to visually affirm individuals' status by marking gender, age and marital status; and to link Icelanders to international styles and to emerging emblems of regional and national identity. Through a detailed analysis of textile collections now held in Icelandic museums, recovered over the past century from archaeological sites in all parts of this subarctic island and spanning 1100 years, this project will document and analyze women's roles and women's involvement in textile production, In so doing, it will help to establish an archaeology of gender in the North Altantic. By exploring textile production and use, through time, on an island-wide scale, it will document the roles of imported textiles and dyes within Iceland and the ways that "women's work" in textile production influenced both Iceland?s domestic and international commerce. Through this approach, it will shed new light on women?s power within Icelandic households at different levels of the social system, providing a valuable contribution to social archaeological research in the North Atlantic. Finally, by exploring the decisions that women made in transforming textiles - both domestic and imported - into clothing, this project will investigate the roles they played in establishing and changing markers of individual, family, regional, and national identity as well as decisions they may have made when facing increasing global climate cooling in the North Atlantic. This project will bring Icelandic women and women's work to the forefront in North Atlantic research, use them as a model for reintroducing women into archaeological research programs across the North, and contribute to global discussions about the hidden roles of women in traditional societies and their roles in guiding change and preserving tradition.