Spinning and weaving in a pile dwelling of four thousand years ago: data from the excavations at Lucone di Polpenazze del Garda (BS)

The pile-dwelling sites around Lake Garda in northern Italy, datable primarily to Early Bronze Age, provide important information regarding the spinning and weaving of linen and other vegetable fibres. In these settlements, not only tools for textile production in clay, bone-antler and wood, but also fragments of fabrics were found. In addition to the Trentino site of Ledro, already known for numerous fragments of linen fabric, the site of Lucone di Polpenazze is taking on considerable importance thanks to the new excavations underway since 2007. Various settlements have been identified in the inframorenic basin of the Lucone. To Lucone A, excavated from 1965 to 1971, which had already yielded various interesting materials, including numerous textile fragments, now has been added Lucone D, where numerous fragments of fabric, a spool with wound thread and various tools for spinning and weaving have been found. This paper summarises the preliminary analysis of spindle whorls, loom weights, some of the linen textile fragments and the thread preserved on a spool, which attests the intermediate stage of splicing at Lucone.