Archaeologists Say They’ve Uncovered Europe’s Oldest Basketry

Dating back 9,500 years, the prehistoric finds shed light on Mesolithic hunter-gatherer societies and Neolithic farming communities.

https://hyperallergic.com/archaeologists-say-theyve-uncovered-europes-oldest-basketry/

CONTEXT

The WILLOWweavers Research Project emerged out of a series of serendipitous encounters that sparked a hunt of a kind for a Launceston WILLOWweaver of yesteryear. As it is with serendipity one thing led to another and what appears to be a set of 'faded memories', and some storytelling, it emerged that up until WW1, or thereabouts, Launceston had a longstanding 'wicker industry'.

The 'Ballard enterprise' employed somewhere around 40 workers and it seems that albeit they were the key makers and willow growers there were others in that era. And the stories not only resonated with 'colonial settlement' but also convict histories. However much later others seem to have turned up with different rich personal cultural cargoes.

What seems to have been forgotten in Launceston is just how often willow weavers and basket weaving touched people and their lives pre WW2 and into the 1960s/70s. Indeed, it is not a stretch of the imagination to suggest that at the time 'basketry' touched almost every body's life in some way. Likewise, this was, and is, evidenced in cultural landscapes and arguably in tangible ways.

How might such an activity have faded from view and so quietly? How did it shape people's lives and the places they lived? What has taken its place? How and when?

CONTEXT NOTE:

https://willowweaverstasmania.blogspot.com.au/2018/01/wickery-and-place.html

CONTACT INFORMATION

Please eMAIL:

LAUNCESTONprojects@bigpond.com

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Sunday, February 22, 2026

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Archaeologists Say They’ve Uncovered Europe’s Oldest Basketry