Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
The Ancient Pack Basket
 Login/Join
 
Factor
posted
Hey folks, we talked about "what did they carry" in another thread. Let's talk about a really old manner of how they carried stuff.

I hope I haven't mentioned this in another thread on this forum..., Archaeologist are looking at Ötzi the mummy found in the alps, aka "the iceman", at his gear. They thought that he had a framed pack, and still do, but they also thought he had a "grass cloak" or cape....

They are now thinking Ötzi's "cape" is actually part of his pack, and that he was using a semi-pliant pack basket, that used grass woven together to form the basket portion, which was then supported by the frame on his back.

That would make the pack-basket the oldest known form of documented pack...dating to 5300 years ago....,

Otzi

Perhaps we might reconsider the pack basket for certain applications, and of different designs, for our treks?


LD


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Booshway
Picture of Notchy Bob
posted Hide Post
Now this is a topic I had not considered, but I should have. We are reminded of the pack-baskets used by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara women. These could carry quite a load, but would leave the hands free. They were built on a very simple but commodious wood frame. The basket proper was usually of some sort of plant fiber (does river cane grow on the upper Missouri?) woven in a colored pattern, but the "basket" was sometimes of hide, stretched over the same type of frame. This was distinct from the ash splint packbaskets of the north woods, and may have been more similar to the one carried by the Ice Man. Maybe it was an older style.

Thanks, Dave, for introducing the topic!

Notchy Bob


"Should have kept the old ways just as much as I could, and the tradition that guarded us. Should have rode horses. Kept dogs."

from The Antelope Wife
 
Posts: 333 | Location: Florida | Registered: 24 May 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Factor
posted Hide Post
Hey no problem. Big Grin

OH and if anybody made a pair of leggings based on Ötzi's..., although they are of a design more than five millennia old..., you'd not tell them as different from those used in the 18th century.

LD


It's not what you know, it's what you can prove
 
Posts: 3843 | Location: People's Republic of Maryland | Registered: 10 November 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Graybeard
posted Hide Post
I like the 'soft' packbasket idea; I once tried a modern stiff packbasket. When I fell off a slippery rock and landed on my face the packbasket rammed down on the back of my neck adding insult to injury. Needless to say, I use it to carry stuff in the back of the truck now but never on my back!
 
Posts: 216 | Location: Middletown, Pennsylvania | Registered: 03 July 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata  
 


2014 Historical Enterprises, LLC